•         3  /: 

VARIOUS -VIEWS 

,    t&    <*/    <<&   'A 

^ILLIAM-NOKTON-PAYNE 


VARIOUS    VIEWS 


BY 

WILLIAM  MORTON  PAYNE 


CHICAGO 

A.  C.  McCLURG  &  CO. 
1902 


Copyright 

A.  C.  McCLURG  &  Co. 
1902 

Published  October.  1901 


Composition    by    The    Dial    Press.    Chicago.    U.S.A. 
Presswork  by  The  University  Press.  Cambridge.  U.  S.  A. 


TO 
PAUL    SHOREY 

WITH 
THIRTY    YEARS   OF    FRIENDSHIP 


2018832 


PREFACE. 

THIS  book  is  a  companion  volume  to  « Little  Leaders'  and 
'  Editorial  Echoes.'  Like  its  predecessors,  it  is  made  up 
of  thirty  leading  articles  written  for  « The  Dial '  during 
recent  years.  A  few  inconsiderable  changes  in  the  orig- 
inal text  have  been  made,  but  the  papers  remain  substan- 
tially what  they  were  when  first  printed,  and  even  the 
conventional  editorial  style  has  been  retained.  The  mis- 
cellaneous character  of  the  papers  here  brought  together 
has  made  impossible  the  threefold  classification  of  the 
earlier  volumes,  although  a  rough  grouping  according  to 
subject-matter  has  been  attempted.  It  will  be  found, 
however,  that,  as  before,  the  writer  has  been  chiefly  pre- 
occupied with  themes  suggested  by  the  broader  aspects 
of  literary  history  and  criticism. 
CHICAGO,  October  i,  1902. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

THE  HUGO  CENTENARY n 

ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT ^^ 

SHAKESPEARE  IN  FRANCE 32. 

THE  TIE  THAT  BINDS 4- 

INTERNATIONAL  AMITY 50 

HERO-WORSHIP 57 

A  PHILISTINE  WATCHWORD 67 

A  QUESTION  OF  LITERARY  CONSCIENCE    ...  75 

THE  ARTIST  AND  THE  MAN -83 

THE  DUTIES  OF  AUTHORS 93 

TENDENCIES  IN  LITERATURE 102 

ENERGY  AND  ART 109 

THE  ARCHITECTURE  OF  THE  MIND     .     .     .     .119 

IDIOM  AND  IDEAL 128 

THE  REVALUATION  OF  LITERATURE     .     .     .     .136 

THE  GENTLE  READER 145 

THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  NOVELIST 153 

THE  REVIVAL  OF  ROMANCE 161 

THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  NOVEL 169 

THE  NOVEL  AND  THE  LIBRARY 178 

THE  DRAMA  AS  ART 189 

THE  ENDOWED  THEATRE 198 


x.  CONTENTS  —  Continued. 

PACK 

M.  BRUNETIERE'S  PEDAGOGICAL  PRESCRIPTION  .  207 
THE  CRITIC  AS  PICKER  AND  STEALER      ,     .     .   215 

A  WORD  FOR  MINOR  POETRY 223 

NEWSPAPER  SCIENCE 231 

THE  DECAY  OF  AMERICAN  JOURNALISM  .     .     .   241 
THE  STAR  SYSTEM  IN  PUBLISHING       .     .     .     .251 

THE  YOUNG  PERSON 260 

THE  NEW  PATRIOTIC  IMPULSE 269 


THE  HUGO  CENTENARY. 

SEVENTEEN  years  ago,  the  death  of  Victor  Hugo, 
at  the  age  of  eighty-three,  plunged  into  mourn- 
ing the  whole  civilized  world.  At  Goethe's  age, 
and  Voltaire's,  within  a  few  months,  he  entered 
into  rest,  and  of  all  the  great  men  of  European 
letters  since  Shakespeare,  those  two  alone  seemed 
worthy  to  be  named  with  him.  For  more  than 
half  a  century,  his  rank  had  been  preeminent,  not 
among  French  writers  alone,  but  among  those 
of  the  whole  world,  and  his  venerable  declining 
years  had  been  crowned  with  such  glory  as  is 
won  by  few  indeed  among  the  sons  of  men. 
His  genius  had  so  dominated  the  century  which 
it  illustrated  that  it  seemed  as  if  history  must 
henceforth  remember  the  period  by  his  name, 
and  speak  of  the  Age  of  Hugo  as  it  speaks  of  the 
Age  of  Dante  or  the  Age  of  Shakespeare. 

Now  that  the  years  of  Victor  Hugo's  life, 
added  to  the  years  that  have  elapsed  since  his 
death,  have  made  up  the  full  sum  of  one  hun- 


12  Various  Views 

dred,  and  men  touched  with  his  spirit  and  in- 
spired by  his  message  are  engaged  —  not  alone 
in  the  country  that  has  the  first  claim  upon  his 
memory  —  in  recalling  his  splendid  services  to 
humanity  and  his  priceless  contributions  to  the 
treasury  of  that  literature  which  has  the  breath 
of  life  everlasting,  —  now  that  the  centennial 
year  of  his  birth  has  been  reached,  it  becomes 
pertinent  to  ask  how  time  has  dealt  with  his 
reputation,  and  how  strong  is  still  the  hold  of  his 
works  upon  the  artistic  sense  and  the  conscience 
of  the  generation  that  has  come  after  him.  The 
final  appraisal  is  not  yet  possible,  nor  will  it  be 
for  perhaps  a  hundred  years  to  come,  but  some 
things  may  now  be  said  that  our  posterity  will 
not  be  likely  to  repudiate.  For  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  Hugo's  work  has  been  tested  by 
the  apparatus  of  the  critic  during  a  much  longer 
period  than  the  term  of  years  that  he  has  been 
in  his  grave.  It  is  now  three-quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury since  the  famous  pronunciamento  of  l  Crom- 
well' was  delivered,  and  it  is  nearly  as  long  since 
the  pitched  battle  between  the  romanticists  and 
classicists  that  was  occasioned  by  the  premiere  of 
1  Hernani.'  During  all  that  time,  the  genius  of 


The  Hugo  Centenary  13 

Hugo  has  been  hotly  championed  by  some,  and 
bitterly  assailed  by  others.  When  he  died,  de- 
traction had  already  done  its  worst  upon  him, 
and  his  fame  had  emerged  well-nigh  untarnished 
from  the  smoke  of  the  critical  conflict.  Since 
1885,  his  assailants  have  found  nothing  to  say  of 
him  so  severe  as  what  was  said  long  before  that 
date,  and  the  recognition  of  his  finer  qualities  — 
always  admitted  by  those  who  dealt  with  him  the 
most  roughly — has  been  less  grudgingly  admitted 
even  by  those  who  have  felt  bound  to  enter  their 
caveat  against  his  acceptance  as  one  of  the  great 
figures  in  the  history  of  literature. 

We  have  observed  with  close  attention  the 
currents  and  counter-currents  of  recent  opinion 
concerning  Hugo's  work,  and  it  seems  to  us  that 
there  has  gradually  shaped  itself,  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  his  own  compatriots  as  well  as  in  the 
consciousness  of  the  cosmopolitan  tribunal  of 
letters,  an  image  of  the  poet  that  looms  larger 
and  larger  as  the  age  recedes  from  him,  an  image 
so  colossal  that  it  dwarfs  all  others  of  his  world- 
contemporaries  in  the  retrospective  vision.  Can 
we  as  Englishmen,  great  as  must  be  our  rever- 
ence for  the  memories  of  Shelley  and  Words- 


14  Various  Views 

worth  and  Tennyson,  of  Carlyle  and  Ruskin 
and  Emerson,  can  we  in  fairness  claim  that  any 
of  these  men  matches  Hugo  in  artistic  and  moral 
stature  ?  Can  a  German  make  the  claim  for 
Heine,  can  an  Italian  make  it  for  Signer  Carducci, 
can  a  Russian  make  it  for  Tourguenieff,  can  a 
Norwegian  make  it  for  Dr.  Ibsen  ?  Can  a 
Frenchman  fairly  make  it  for  Musset  or  Balzac 
or  Renan  ?  To  ask  these  questions,  it  seems  to 
us,  is  to  make  it  clear  that  negative  answers  are 
the  only  possible  ones.  Certain  aspects  of  the 
genius  of  these  other  men  may  appeal  to  us  more 
deeply,  or  strike  more  responsive  chords  in  our 
consciousness,  but  the  noblest  personality  of 
them  all,  with  the  sum  total  of  its  achievement, 
set  beside  the  personality  and  the  achievement  of 
Hugo,  must  suffer  in  the  comparison.  4  The 
spiritual  sovereign  of  the  nineteenth  century,' 
Mr.  Swinburne  calls  him,  and,  whatever  critical 
reservations  we  may  make  upon  this  point  or 
upon  that,  it  seems  that  the  ascription  is  still  the 
just  due  of  the  great  poet,  novelist,  and  dramatist 
whose  writings  have  now  been  steadily  pouring 
from  the  press  for  a  period  of  nearly  eighty  years. 
Against  this  secular  canonization  of  the  poet 


The  Hugo  Centenary  15 

the  devil's  advocate  has  advanced  three  main 
charges.  The  first  is  that,  while  parading  om- 
niscience, he  is  guilty  of  gross  inaccuracies  of 
scholarship  and  grotesque  perversions  of  the 
truth.  This  charge  may  fairly  be  allowed. 
4  L'Homme  Qui  Rit,'  for  example,  is  a  ro- 
mance pour  rire  as  far  as  its  background  of  his- 
torical fact  is  concerned.  '  Notre  Dame  de 
Paris,'  with  its  '  deux  tours  de  granit  faites  par 
Charlemagne,'  is  not  in  much  better  case, 
although  its  subject  is  the  history  of  the  poet's 
own  country.  In  short,  the  story  of  Hugo's 
blunders  is  as  lengthy  as  it  is  amusing.  The 
second  charge  is  that  he  is  a  rhetorician,  who 
cultivated  a  turgid,  bombastic,  and  sensational 
manner  of  composition,  instead  of  following  in 
the  footsteps  of  the  great  masters  of  style.  This 
charge  has  a  qualified  truth,  although  it  reduces 
for  the  most  part  to  the  complaint  which  the 
classicist  always  makes  of  the  romanticist,  and 
begs  the  deeper  question  which  is  really  at  issue. 
And  if  4Hernani,'  for  example,  is  rhetoric  rather 
than  poetry,  as  perhaps  it  is,  what  splendid  rhet- 
oric it  offers  its  readers  !  When  before  in  the 
French  drama  were  4  points '  ever  made  with 


16  Various  Views 

such  telling  effect  as  in  this  melodramatic  inven- 
tion !  t  Vous  n'allez  pas  au  fond,'  4  Couvrons 
nous,  grands  d'Espagne,'  4  Dieu !  je  suis  ex- 
aucee,'  cj'en  passe,  et  des  meilleurs,'  —  how 
the  examples  crowd  upon  the  memory  !  It  may 
be  rhetoric,  but  the  emotions  which  it  arouses  are 
not  readily  to  be  distinguished  from  those  which 
we  experience  from  the  purest  tragic  poetry. 

Concerning  the  third  charge,  which  makes  the 
poet  out  as  a  person  of  unbounded  egotism  and 
colossal  self-esteem,  it  may  be  admitted  that 
Hugo  frequently  spoke  of  himself  in  terms  that 
his  truest  friends  might  wish  had  been  left  to 
others  to  formulate.  Yet  modesty  and  self- 
effacement  are  virtues  that  may  be  carried  too  far, 
and  in  Hugo's  case  their  assumption  would  have 
been  a  hypocritical  affectation.  The  prophet 
must  be  self-conscious,  else  he  is  no  prophet ;  he 
must  have  an  exalted  sense  of  his  mission,  and  a 
fervent  belief  in  the  truth  of  his  message.  And 
if  any  nineteenth  century  utterance  may  be  called 
prophetic,  it  was  surely  that  of  the  man  who 
proclaimed  that 

4  Le  poete,  en  des  jours  impies, 
Vient  preparer  des  jours  meilleurs,' 


The  Hugo  Centenary  17 

and  whose  faith  in  the  sacredness  of  his  calling 
did  not  waver  to  the  end.  Posterity  never  con- 
demns a  man  for  taking  the  true  measure  of  him- 
self, even  if  that  measure  be  a  large  one;  it  is 
only  to  his  contemporaries,  and  during  the  period 
when  his  true  dimensions  are  the  subject  of  con- 
troversy, that  such  self-appraisal  seems  an  act  of 
questionable  taste.  When  we  read  of  Shake- 
speare declaring  that  his  rhyme  shall  outlive  4  the 
gilded  monuments  of  princes/  or  of  Dante  say- 
ing, with  magnificent  arrogance,  —  the  question 
being  of  an  important  embassy,  — c  S'io  vo,  chi 
sta ;  s'io  sto,  chi  va?'  we  applaud  rather  than 
condemn,  we  admire  rather  than  deride,  the  abso- 
lute conviction  of  the  phrase.  Posterity  has 
accepted  these  men  at  their  own  estimates ;  it  is 
more  than  possible  that  posterity  may  accept 
Hugo  at  his  own  estimate. 

There  are  spots  upon  the  sun  —  this  is  about 
the  substance  of  what  unsympathetic  criticism 
discovers  in  its  examination  of  the  work  of  Victor 
Hugo.  But  those  who  all  their  lives  have  bathed 
in  the  sunlight,  and  felt  its  vivifying  warmth,  are 
content  to  be  simply  grateful,  and  will  not,  for 
knowledge  of  the  sun-spots,  declare  the  moon 


i8  Various  Views 

to  be  a  more  satisfactory  orb.  The  positive 
achievement  of  Hugo  is  so  immense  that  a  vol- 
ume would  be  needed  for  the  barest  summary. 
Leaving  aside  his  miscellaneous  prose,  descrip- 
tive, fanciful,  speculative,  critical,  and  political, 
there  remain  the  three  great  categories  of  strictly 
creative  work,  poetry,  romance,  and  drama. 
This  seems  to  be  the  order  in  which  they  will 
eventually  stand,  the  order  in  which  serious 
criticism  has  already  placed  them.  To  the 
creator  of  l  Hernani,'  c  Ruy  Bias,'  and  4  Marion 
Delorme,'  we  must  give  the  credit  of  accom- 
plishing the  romantic  revolution  in  French  dra- 
matic art.  To  the  creator  of  4  Notre  Dame  de 
Paris,'  c  Les  Miserables,'  and  *  Quatre-vingt- 
treize,'  we  must  give  the  credit  of  promulgating 
a  new  conception  of  the  teachings  of  history  and 
a  new  gospel  of  social  solidarity.  To  the  creator 
of  <  Les  Contemplations,'  l  Les  Chatiments,' 
and  l  La  Legende  des  Siecles '  we  must  give  the 
credit  of  first  revealing  the  full  singing  possibilities 
of  the  French  language,  of  rising  to  such  a  height 
of  lyric  expression  as  had  been  attained  by  no 
French  poet  before,  of  crowning  the  splendid 
edifice  of  French  literature  with  its  supreme 


The  Hugo  Centenary  19 

revelation  of  pinnacled  beauty.  In  this  lyrical 
domain  Hugo  out-sang  all  the  other  poets  of  his 
age,  and  most  of  the  poets  of  all  ages ;  he  rose 
as  upon  the  pinions  of  the  eagle,  and  matched 
the  richness  of  Pindar ;  he  soared  as  with  the 
skylark's  wings,  and  matched  the  pure  note  of 
Shelley.  When  at  the  height  of  his  inspiration, 
he  poured  forth  strains  of  everlasting  melody, 
which  were  yet  linked  in  thought  with  the  noblest 
aspirations  of  the  human  spirit ;  for  his  genius, 
while  ever  striving  after  the  beautiful,  never  for- 
got its  allegiance  to  the  true  and  the  good  —  to 
the  other  aspects  of  what  must  ever  remain  the 
triune  ideal  of  the  soul  of  man. 

One  thing  more  must  be  said  to  round  out 
this  commemorative  tribute  to  the  poet  whose 
centenary  is  now  at  hand.  Of  another  great 
poet  it  has  been  written  : 

'  It  is  indeed 

Forever  well  our  singers  should 
Utter  good  words  and  know  them  good 
Not  through  song  only;  with  close  heed 
Lest,  having  spent  for  the  work's  sake 
Six  days,  the  man  be  left  to  make.' 

It  is  c  not  through  song  only '  that  we  love  and 
cherish  the  memory  of  Victor  Hugo.  To  the 


20  Various  Views 

man  also  our  tribute  is  due  —  the  man  who  spoke 
brave  words  for  freedom  when  such  words  were 
most  needed,  the  man  who,  at  the  sacrifice  of  all 
that  was  dear  to  him,  translated  into  action  the 
faith  that  was  his,  and  made  his  protest  against 
tyranny  doubly  eloquent  by  his  example.  One 
of  the  most  grudging  of  his  English  critics  is 
inspired  to  enthusiasm  by  the  contemplation  of 
the  chief  act  in  Hugo's  life,  and  writes  of  it 
in  terms  of  such  admiration  that  we  can  sug- 
gest nothing  to  add.  l  The  great  fact  remains. 
M.  Hugo,  in  scorn  of  amnesties  and  invitations, 
lived  out  nineteen  years  of  exile ;  his  voice  did 
not  fail  nor  his  heart  falter ;  he  stood  on  his  rock 
in  the  free  British  seas,  like  Elijah  on  Carmel, 
spokesman  and  champion  of  all  those  who  had 
not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal.'  The  example  is 
one  for  all  time  and  for  all  men.  Only  one  man 
in  a  century  may  embody  his  protest  against 
wrong  in  a  volume  of  c  Chatiments,'  but  every 
man  may  have  the  strength  of  purpose  to  stand 
for  what  he  believes  to  be  the  right,  whatever 
the  forces  that  are  leagued  against  him.  In 
these  lax  days  of  service  to  the  spirit  of  com- 
promise, there  is  no  lesson  more  needed  than 


The  Hugo  Centenary  21 

that  of  Victor  Hugo's  l  Ultima  Verba  '  —  those 
words  which  seemed  futile  enough  at  the  time  of 
their  deliverance,  but  which,  in  the  light  of  sub- 
sequent history,  are  seen  to  have  been  the  very 
sign  and  seal  of  the  poet's  prophetic  function. 


22  Various  Views 


ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT. 

4 1  WAS  born,'  says  Alexandra  Dumas,  lat  Villers- 
Cotterets,  a  little  town  in  the  department  of 
the  Aisne,  on  the  Paris  road,  about  two  hun- 
dred paces  from  the  Rue  de  la  Noue,  where 
Demoustiers  died,  two  leagues  from  La  Ferte- 
Milon,  where  Racine  was  born,  and  seven 
leagues  from  Chateau-Thierry,  where  La  Fon- 
taine first  saw  the  light.  I  was  born  on  July  24, 
1802,  at  half-past  five  in  the  morning,  in  the 
Rue  de  Lormet,  in  a  house  which  now  belongs 
to  my  friend  Cartier,  who  would  gladly  sell  it  to 
me  any  day,  so  that  I  may  be  able  to  die  in  the 
very  room  where  I  was  born.'  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  he  never  did  buy  the  house,  but  died,  De- 
cember 5,  1870,  in  a  little  town  near  Dieppe, 
whither  he  had  been  carried  from  Paris  by  his 
devoted  son,  on  the  eve  of  the  German  invest- 
ment of  the  Capital,  in  order  that  his  last  days 
might  be  spared  the  privations  of  the  siege. 
Something  more  than  a  year  later,  when  his 


Alexander  the  Great  23 

country  was  again  at  peace,  his  remains  received 
final  interment  in  his  native  town,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  famous  following  of  authors,  artists, 
and  actors. 

The  bit  of  autobiography  above  quoted  is 
characteristic  at  once  of  the  geniality  and  the 
egotism  of  the  man  who  wrote  it.  It  quite  takes 
for  granted  the  reader's  interest  in  every  slightest 
personal  particular  that  the  writer  may  see  fit  to 
impart  j  it  takes  also  for  granted  the  reader's 
acceptance  of  the  fact  that  neither  Racine  nor 
La  Fontaine  could  possibly  shed  any  greater 
lustre  upon  the  region  of  their  common  birth 
than  was  shed  by  the  author  of  c  Monte  Cristo' 
and  4  Les  Trois  Mousquetaires.'  Of  his  own 
greatness,  indeed,  Alexandre  Dumas  retained  an 
unshaken  conviction  throughout  his  long  career. 
At  the  height  of  that  career,  he  could  assert 
with  perfect  self-assurance  that  for  a  quarter  of 
a  century  past  three  men,  Hugo,  Lamartine,  and 
himself,  had  remained  at  the  head  of  contempo- 
rary French  literature  ;  our  only  marvel  is  that  he 
should  not  have  set  his  own  name  first  in  that 
trinity  of  literary  fame.  We  are  not  of  those  to 
whom  such  assertions  are  always  and  necessarily 


24  Various  Views 

amusing.  They  may  express  the  proud  self- 
consciousness  of  genius,  or  they  may  merely  in- 
dicate a  remarkable  capacity  for  self-deception. 
When  Dante  and  Shakespeare  state  what  we 
know  to  be  the  simple  truth  concerning  their 
own  work,  we  applaud  rather  than  rebuke,  hold- 
ing such  frank  utterance  in  higher  esteem  than 
any  exhibition  of  mock  modesty.  But  in  the 
case  of  Dumas  the  effect  of  such  self-assertion 
is  on  the  whole,  an  entertaining  illustration  of 
the  delusion  of  the  egotist.  That  he  was  a  great 
writer  in  the  sense  in  which  Hugo  was  a  great 
writer  is,  of  course,  a  preposterous  notion ;  and 
that  he  should  honestly  have  ranked  himself  with 
his  most  illustrious  contemporary  shows  only  the 
fact  that  his  critical  faculty,  weak  in  any  case,  was 
absolutely  incapable  of  taking  the  measure  of  his 
own  work. 

Although  a  writer  of  only  the  second  rank, 
Dumas  looms  up  astonishingly  in  the  French 
literature  of  the  last  century,  and  he  still  holds 
his  own  surprisingly  well.  In  some  respects  his 
position  is  better  to-day  than  it  was  at  any  time 
during  his  life.  His  enemies  did  their  worst  to 
break  down  his  reputation  while  he  was  still 


Alexander  the  Great  25 

alive ;  after  his  death,  there  was  nothing  more 
to  be  urged  against  him  than  had  already  been 
urged,  and  his  fame  did  not  suffer  the  reaction 
that  commonly  follows  upon  the  death  of  a  great 
writer.  Dumas  was  never  set  upon  such  a 
pinnacle  as  Hugo  in  the  esteem  of  his  admiring 
fellow-countrymen,  and  hence  was  never  in  so 
perilous  a  position.  He  was  immensely  popular, 
but  he  was  not  revered  as  a  prophet  and  a  sage. 
He  has  preserved  his  popularity  at  home  for  a 
full  generation  after  his  death,  while  abroad  he  is 
both  better  known  and  better  appreciated  than  he 
was  at  any  time  while  alive. 

But  as  far  as  the  English-speaking  world  is 
concerned,  the  vogue,  if  not  the  fame,  of  Dumas 
seems  to  have  been  mainly  posthumous.  The 
last  generation  was  inclined  to  regard  with  dark 
suspicion  the  works  of  all  French  novelists,  and 
the  romances  of  Alexandre  Dumas  were  held, 
mostly  by  persons  who  had  never  read  them,  to 
be  typically  c  French  '  in  their  wicked  levity,  and 
consequently  to  be  shunned  by  all  righteous- 
minded  readers.  When  translated  into  English, 
the  romances  were  published  in  such  a  way  as 
to  repel  persons  of  taste,  and  attract  only  those 


26  Various  Views 

classes  of  readers  to  whom  literature  proper 
makes  no  appeal  whatever.  \Vell  do  we  re- 
member the  big  and  ugly  volumes,  badly  printed 
and  bound  in  depressing  black,  in  which  form 
alone  the  American  readers  of  twenty  or  thirty 
years  ago  might  make  the  acquaintance  of 
d'Artagnan  and  Monte  Cristo.  Things  are 
very  different  now,  when  tasteful  editions  abound, 
when  the  old-fashioned  prejudices  have  disap- 
peared, and  when  we  have  all  of  us  become  more 
or  less  denizens  of  the  joyous  realm  of  romantic 
invention  which  is  still  ruled  by  the  spirit  of 
Alexandre  Dumas. 

It  was  along  in  the  eighties,  we  should  say, 
that  English  and  American  readers  of  the  more 
discriminating  sort  came  to  be  attracted  in  con- 
siderable numbers  to  the  romances  of  Dumas. 
Before  that  time,  his  following  had  been  large  but 
uncritical, — it  had  been  a  following  made  up  for 
the  most  part  of  seekers  for  the  sensational  in 
literature,  of  readers  who  were  satisfied  with 
highly-spiced  invention,  and  who  recked  little  of 
constructive  art.  But  Dumas  really  deserved  a 
better  fate  than  the  applause  of  this  class  of  read- 
ers, and  he  received  his  deserts  in  due  course  of 


Alexander  the  Great  27 

time.  It  was  about  twenty  years  ago  that  two 
English  critics  of  undeniable  authority  gave  as- 
surance to  timid  souls  that  their  enjoyment  of  the 
French  romancer  was  quite  legitimate,  and  that 
the  adventures  of  the  three  musketeers  really  be- 
longed to  literature.  It  is,  we  think,  chiefly  to 
Mr.  Andrew  Lang  and  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
that  the  literary  rehabilitation  of  Dumas  with 
the  English-speaking  public  is  to  be  credited,  for 
these  men  boldly  proclaimed  what  many  readers 
of  taste  had  felt  without  quite  daring  to  assert. 
They  had  coupled  in  thought  the  names  of 
Dumas  and  Scott,  but  Mr.  Lang  ventured  to 
make  the  conjunction  on  the  printed  page.  Ad- 
dressing the  spirit  of  the  Frenchman,  he  said : 

'Than  yours  there  has  been  no  greater  nor  more 
kindly  and  beneficent  force  in  modern  letters.  To  Scott, 
indeed,  you  owed  the  first  impulse  of  your  genius;  but, 
once  set  in  motion,  what  miracles  could  it  not  accom- 
plish ?  Our  dear  Porthos  was  overcome,  at  last,  by  a 
superhuman  burden;  but  your  imaginative  strength  never 
found  a  task  too  great  for  it.  It  is  good,  in  a  day  of 
small  and  laborious  ingenuities,  to  breathe  the  free  air  of 
your  books,  and  dwell  in  the  company  of  Dumas' s  men 
—  so  gallant,  so  frank,  so  indomitable,  such  swordsmen, 
and  such  trenchermen.' 

This  frank  and  generous  praise  is   echoed   by 


28  Various  Views 

Stevenson,  who,  closing  his  c  Vicomte  de  Bra- 
gelonne  '  after  the  fifth  perusal,  expresses  his  en- 
thusiastic admiration  in  a  series  of  queries  which 
are  in  fact  challenges  to  all  disputants. 

« What  other  novel  has  such  epic  variety  and  nobility 
of  incident?  Often,  if  you  will,  impossible;  often  of  the 
order  of  an  Arabian  story;  and  yet  all  based  on  human 
nature.  For  if  you  come  to  that,  what  novel  has  more 
human  nature?  Not  studied  with  the  microscope,  but 
seen  largely  in  plain  daylight,  with  the  natural  eye? 
What  novel  has  more  good  sense,  and  gaiety,  and  wit, 
and  unflagging,  admirable  literary  skill  ?  .  .  .  And,  once 
more,  to  make  an  end  of  commendations,  what  novel  is 
inspired  with  a  more  unstrained  or  a  more  wholesome 
morality  ?  * 

These  words  take  us  far  indeed  from  the  stand- 
point of  middle-class  propriety  and  narrow  puri- 
tanical outlook.  They  mark  the  larger  and  saner 
critical  light  in  which  our  own  generation  has 
come  to  view  the  famous  literature  of  the  past. 
In  the  presence  of  such  tributes  as  these,  the 
unlovely  aspects  of  the  character  of  Dumas,  and 
the  dubious  aspects  of  his  literary  methods,  sink 
into  relative  insignificance.  Granted  that  he  was 
a  swaggerer  and  vainglorious,  that  petty  jealousies 
and  hypocrisies  marked  many  stages  of  his  career, 
that  in  his  financial  relations  he  held  his  personal 


Alexander  the  Great  29 

honor  too  lightly;  granted  also  that  his  literary 
supercheries  were  of  unexampled  audacity,  that 
he  pillaged  ideas  and  situations  from  all  sorts  of 
sources,  that  he  lent  his  name  to  books  that 
others  had  written,  —  granted  all  these  things, 
with  many  others  of  like  tenor,  the  fact  remains 
that  he  possessed  an  astonishingly  original  and 
prolific  genius,  that  besides  much  slipshod  writing 
that  has  long  since  been  forgotten  he  produced 
a  series  of  masterpieces  that  the  world  will  not 
willingly  let  die,  and  that  his  higher  ideals  were 
on  the  whole  ideals  of  manliness  and  clean  living 
and  devotion  to  admirable  artistic  aims. 

Long  before  Dumas  had  become  popular  with 
English  readers,  at  a  time  when  they  thought  of 
him,  so  far  as  they  thought  at  all,  as  of  a  writer 
whose  stock  in  trade  was  a  shallow  sensationalism 
and  a  picturesque  perversion  of  historical  hap- 
penings, he  was  known  and  loved  by  no  less  a 
man  than  Thackeray,  who  found  no  difficulty  in 
rising  above  English  prejudice  and  contracting  a 
very  genuine  sympathy  for  the  most  gasconading 
of  Frenchmen.  This  is  the  language  in  which 
Thackeray  deals  with  the  vexed  matter  of  col- 
laboration : 


30  Various  Views 

'They  say  that  all  the  works  bearing  Dumas' s  name 
are  not  written  by  him.  Well  ?  does  not  the  chief  cook 
have  aides  under  him  ?  Did  not  Rubens' s  pupils  paint 
on  his  canvases  ?  Had  not  Lawrence  assistants  for  his 
backgrounds  ?  For  myself,  being  also  du  metier,  I  con- 
fess I  would  often  like  to  have  a  competent,  respectable, 
and  rapid  clerk  for  the  business  part  of  my  novels,  and 
on  his  arrival  at  eleven  o'clock,  would  say,  "  Mr.  Jones, 
if  you  please,  the  archbishop  must  die  this  morning  in 
about  five  pages.  Turn  to  article  'Dropsy'  (or  what 
you  will )  in  Encyclopaedia.  Take  care  there  are  no 
medical  blunders  in  his  death.  Group  his  daughters, 
physicians,  and  chaplains  round  him.  In  Wales' s  'Lon- 
don,' letter  B,  third  shelf,  you  will  find  an  account  of 
Lambeth,  and  some  prints  of  the  place.  Colour  in  with 
local  colouring.  The  daughter  will  come  down  and  speak 
to  her  lover  in  his  wherry  at  Lambeth  Stairs,"  etc.,  etc. 
Jones  (an  intelligent  young  man)  examines  the  medical, 
historical,  topographical  books  necessary,  his  chief  points 
out  to  him  in  Jeremy  Taylor  (fol.  London,  MDCLV.) 
a  few  remarks  such  as  might  befit  a  dear  old  archbishop 
departing  this  life.  When  I  come  back  to  dress  for 
dinner  the  archbishop  is  dead  on  my  table,  in  five  pages, 
medicine,  topography,  theology,  all  right,  and  Jones  has 
gone  home  to  his  family  some  hours.' 

According  to  some  such  fashion  as  this,  no 
doubt,  much  of  the  work  of  Alexandre  Dumas 
was  done,  but  we  know  as  well  as  Thackeray 
did  that  by  no  such  method  is  a  trio  of  mus- 
keteers to  be  created.  It  is  to  the  creative  genius 


Alexander  the  Great  31 

that  gave  life  to  the  work,  however  the  details 
might  be  executed,  that  Thackeray's  tribute  is 
paid. 

«  Of  your  heroic  heroes,  I  think  our  friend  Monseig- 
neur  Athos,  Count  de  la  Fere,  is  my  favorite.  I  have 
read  about  him  from  sunrise  to  sunset  with  the  utmost 
contentment  of  mind.  He  has  passed  through  how  many 
volumes  ?  Forty  ?  Fifty  ?  I  wish,  for  my  part,  there  were 
a  hundred  more,  and  would  never  tire  of  his  rescuing 
prisoners,  punishing  ruffians,  and  running  scoundrels 
through  the  midriff  with  his  most  graceful  rapier.' 


32  Various  Views 


SHAKESPEARE  IN  FRANCE. 

THE  learned  M.  Jusserand,  who  is  as  entertain- 
ing as  he  is  learned,  and  who  has  done  almost  as 
much  as  Taine  did  (although  in  a  very  different 
way)  to  give  a  new  interest  to  the  history  of 
English  literature,  has  published  a  book  upon 
the  fortunes  of  Shakespeare  among  the  French- 
men. The  subject  of  this  investigation  is  so 
novel,  as  well  as  so  interesting  inherently,  that 
it  seems  worth  while  to  tell  M.  Jusserand's  story 
in  condensed  form,  although  it  has  been  made 
fully  accessible  to  English  readers.  Of  course, 
we  all  know  in  its  general  outline  the  history 
of  Shakespearian  study  in  France,  but  few  even 
among  students  know  the  interesting  details  of 
the  narrative  which  M.  Jusserand  has  illustrated 
from  the  wealth  of  his  rich  and  curious  reading, 
which  he  has  adorned  with  his  piquant  style  and 
warmed  with  his  sympathetic  c  appreciation  '  of 
the  greatest  poet  of  the  modern  world. 

M.  Jusserand  introduces  his  narrative  by  setting 


Shakespeare  in  France          33 

side  by  side  two  passages,  published  respectively 
in  1645  and  1765,  and  roughly  indicating  the 
limits  of  the  period  to  which  the  chief  interest 
of  the  story  attaches,  the  period  during  which 
Shakespeare  won  his  way  to  the  French  con- 
sciousness. The  first  extract  is  from  Blaeu's 
4  Theatre  du  Monde,'  a  sort  of  glorified  gaz- 
eteer,  and  informs  the  reader  that  Stratford  is  a 
pleasant  little  town  which  owes  its  entire  glory 
to  c Jehan  de  Stratford,  archeveque  de  Cantor- 
bery'  and  'Hugues  de  Clopton,  juge  a  Londres.' 
One  of  these  worthies,  it  seems,  built  a  church 
in  Stratford,  and  the  ether  spanned  the  Avon 
with  a  bridge.  To  this  writer,  Shakespeare  was 
less  than  a  name ;  Stratford  had  enough  of  glory 
in  its  claim  upon  the  primate  and  the  judge. 
The  other  extract  is  from  the  c  Encyclopaedia/ 
and  speaks  of  Stratford  in  this  fashion  :  '  It  was 
not  long  ago  that  the  house  in  which  Shake- 
speare (William)  died  in  1616  was  still  pointed 
out  in  this  town;  it  was  even  regarded  as  a  curi- 
osity of  the  country  and  the  inhabitants  regretted 
its  destruction,  so  jealous  are  they  of  the  glory  of 
having  given  birth  to  this  sublime  genius,  the 
greatest  in  all  dramatic  poetry.'  The  article  fills 


34  Various  Views 

five  columns,  and  although  its  title  is  *•  Stratford,' 
its  exclusive  subject  is  Shakespeare.  To  trace 
the  history  of  the  change  in  French  opinion  thus 
brought  about  by  a  century  has  been  the  task  of 
M.  Jusserand,  and  the  subject  is  one  richly  de- 
serving of  attention. 

The  first  judgment  upon  Shakespeare  to  find 
expression  in  the  French  language  occurs  in  a 
catalogue  of  the  Royal  Library  (1675-1684).  A 
copy  of  the  second  folio  had  found  its  way  into 
the  collection,  and  the  entry  of  the  cataloguer 
included,  besides  a  Latinized  form  of  the  title, 
the  following  note :  *  This  English  poet  has  a 
rather  fine  imagination,  he  thinks  naturally,  he 
expresses  himself  with  delicacy,  but  these  fine 
qualities  are  darkened  by  the  filth  that  he  mingles 
with  his  comedies.'  An  inventory  of  Fouquet's 
library  shows  that  it  also  contained  a  volume  of 
Shakespeare  *  valued  at  one  livre.'  The  first 
printed  mention  of  Shakespeare  in  France  occurs 
in  Baillet's  *  Jugements  des  Savants'  (1685—6). 
Here  the  name  is  given,  without  comment,  in  a 
list  of  English  poets.  Two  or  three  other  fugitive 
allusions  to  a  poet  variously  named  l  Shakspear ' 
and  c  Shakees  Pear '  may  be  found  during  the 


Shakespeare  in  France          35 

closing  years  of  the  reign  of  the  Roi-Soleil,  but 
the  great  age  of  French  literature  was  over,  and 
Corneille,  Racine,  and  Moliere  had  long  been  in 
their  graves,  before  even  a  Frenchman  here  and 
there  had  so  much  as  dreamed  that  the  English 
poet  who  had  died  when  Corneille  was  a  boy  of 
ten  was  destined  to  enjoy  a  heritage  of  fame  so 
world-wide  and  so  enduring  that  even  the  genius 
of  Moliere  would  come  to  seem  pale  in  the  com- 
parison. 

The  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century 
changed  all  this.  Not  only  did  Shakespeare  be- 
come widely  known  in  France,  through  criticism 
and  even  through  translation,  but  his  plays  be- 
gan to  influence  the  French  stage,  and  to  awaken 
an  uneasy  feeling  that  possibly  the  rules  of  the 
classic  drama  might  not  have  said  the  final  word 
upon  the  subject  of  dramatic  composition.  Dur- 
ing the  period  in  question  a  great  many  writers 
found  occasion  to  speak  of  Shakespeare  in  ap- 
preciative terms,  and  some  of  these  writers  were 
men  whose  opinions  carried  much  weight.  The 
Abbe  Prevost,  who  made  a  long  stay  in  England, 
and  began  to  publish  his  'Memoires'  in  1728, 
became  a  genuine  anglomaniac,  the  first  in  date 


36  Various  Views 

of  a  numerous  tribe.  The  beauty  of  Mrs. 
Oldfield  inspired  him  to  learn  her  language,  and, 
having  learned  it,  he  read  Shakespeare  and  waxed 
enthusiastic.  c  For  beauty  of  sentiment,'  he 
says,  c  whether  tender  or  sublime,  for  the  tragic 
form  which  stirs  the  depths  of  the  heart  and 
infallibly  arouses  passion  in  the  dullest  souls, 
for  energy  of  expression  and  for  the  art  of  con- 
triving situations  and  carrying  on  an  action,  I 
have  read  nothing,  either  in  Greek  or  in  French, 
which  takes  the  palm  from  the  English  drama.' 
Even  Montesquieu  felt  compelled  to  have  an 
opinion  concerning  Shakespeare,  although,  as 
M.  Jusserand  remarks,  it  does  him  less  honor 
than  his  opinions  upon  government.  In  1830, 
he  had  an  audience  with  the  queen,  who  began  to 
talk  about  the  drama.  She  asked  Lord  Ches- 
terfield, who  was  also  present,  how  it  happened 
that  Shakespeare,  who  lived  in  the  age  Elizabeth, 
had  made  his  women  speak  so  badly  and  act  so 
foolishly.  c  Milord  Chesterfield  answered  the 
question  very  well  by  saying  that  women  did  not 
appear  upon  the  stage,  and  that  their  parts  were 
taken  by  poor  actors,  for  which  reason  Shakes- 
peare did  not  take  any  great  pains  to  make  them 


Shakespeare  in  France  37 

speak  well.  I  should  give  the  other  reason  that, 
to  make  women  speak  well,  one  must  know 
the  ways  and  the  conventions  of  society.  To 
make  heroes  speak,  book  knowledge  is  all  that 
is  necessary.'  These  explanations,  observes  the 
commentator,  'enabled  Queen  Caroline  (to  whom 
Voltaire  had  just  dedicated  his  uHenriade") 
to  understand  why  Beatrice,  Rosalind,  Portia, 
and  Juliet  speak  so  badly  and  are  so  foolish.' 
Meanwhile,  Voltaire,  who  had  the  precious  gift 
of  writing  with  c  blacker  ink '  than  other  men, 
and  of  compelling  attention  to  whatever  he  might 
choose  to  say,  had  lived  for  three  years  in  Lon- 
don, and  published  his  c  Lettres  Philosophiques ' 
in  1734.  Henceforth,  there  was  no  escaping 
Shakespeare  for  the  cultivated  Frenchman,  for 
Voltaire  said  things  about  him  that  could  not 
possibly  be  ignored.  His  appreciation  was  qual- 
ified, but  for  that  perhaps  all  the  more  forcible, 
and  it  is  quite  evident  that  he  was  more  deeply 
impressed  than  he  was  willing  to  let  appear. 
In  the  c  Lettres  '  he  said  :  '  Shakespeare  had 
a  genius  full  of  force  and  fertility,  of  what 
is  natural  and  what  is  sublime,  with  not  the 
least  spark  of  good  taste,  and  without  the  least 


38  Various  Views 

knowledge  of  the  rules.'  In  the  introduction  to 
'Semiramis'  (1748),  where  the  famous  epithet 
of  the  c  drunken  savage '  occurs,  he  said  that 
1  Hamlet '  contains  c  sublime  strokes  worthy  of 
the  loftiest  geniuses.  It  seems  as  if  nature  had 
taken  delight  in  collecting  within  the  brain  of 
Shakespeare  all  that  we  can  imagine  of  what  is 
greatest  and  most  powerful,  with  all  that  rudeness 
without  wit  can  contain  of  what  is  lowest  and 
most  detestable.'  Testimonies  to  Shakespeare 
•were  now  rapidly  multiplying.  Riccoboni(iy38) 
wrote  a  history  of  the  English  stage,  saying  of 
Shakespeare  that  l  having  used  up  his  patrimony, 
he  took  up  the  trade  of  robber.  He  wrote  san- 
guinary dramas,  "Hamlet"  among  others,  and 
"  Othello,"  in  which  we  witness  the  incredible 
strangling  of  Desdemona.'  Le  Blanc  (1745) 
found  fairly  fitting  words  in  which  to  express  the 
magic  of  Shakespeare's  style.  Finally,  La  Place 
(1746)  made  a  French  translation  of  many  of  the 
plays,  and  prepared  analyses  of  the  others. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  we 
come  face  to  face  with  the  c  Shakespeare  ques- 
tion,' which  fills  the  last  and  most  interesting 
chapter  in  all  this  curious  history.  Speaking  of 


Shakespeare  in  France  39 

the  translation  of  c  Torn  Jones'  made  in  1750, 
d'Argenson  remarked  :  4  Anglicism  is  gaining 
upon  us,'  while  Boissy,  in  a  comedy  dated  1753, 
made  sport  of  the  fickle  tastes  of  the  French 
public,  which  sought  after  strange  gods,  now  in 
Italy,  now  in  England. 

'Son  transport  Tautre  jour  etait  Tanglomanie; 
Rien  sans  Thabit  anglais  ne  pouvait  reussir ; 
Au-dessus  de  Corneillc  il  mettait  Shakespir.' 

Something  clearly  had  to  be  done,  and  Voltaire, 
who  felt  that  both  his  critical  precept  and  his 
practice  as  a  dramatic  poet  had  been  largely 
responsible  for  this  exaltation  of  the  '  sauvage 
ivre,'  stepped  into  the  breach.  It  was  all  very 
well  to  praise  Shakespeare  in  measured  terms, 
as  he  had  himself  done,  but  when  it  came  to  a 
complete  and  sumptuous  translation,  dedicated  to 
the  king,  and  prefaced  by  the  judgment  that 
*  never  had  man  of  genius  penetrated  deeper  into 
the  abyss  of  the  human  heart  or  given  better  and 
more  natural  speech  to  the  passions,'  it  was  really 
going  too  far.  c  Had  not  he  [Voltaire]  granted 
enough  to  the  monster  ?  Had  not  he  introduced 
certain  liberties  to  the  French  stage  ?  Had  not 
he  cleared,  and  pruned,  and  given  regular  shape 


40  Various  Views 

to  this  lofty  thicket  ? '  But  now  there  was  noth- 
ing less  in  question  than  a  revolution  of  taste. 
Even  Diderot  was  calling  Shakespeare  'a  Gothic 
colossus  between  whose  legs  we  might  all  pass.' 
*  All  ? '  exclaimed  Voltaire,  and  his  indignation 
waxed.  Nothing  less  than  a  formal  protest  to 
the  Academy  could  suffice  for  such  a  critical  sit- 
uation. 4  There  are  not  in  France  enough  buf- 
fets, enough  foolscaps,  enough  pillories  for  such 
a  fellow '  as  the  audacious  Le  Tourneur,  who 
was  responsible  for  the  translation  that  was  so 
heralded.  lThe  frightful  thing  about  it  is  that 
the  monster  has  a  party  in  France,  and  to  cap 
the  climax  of  calamity,  it  was  I  who  formerly 
first  spoke  of  this  Shakespeare,  it  was  I  who  first 
showed  the  French  a  few  pearls  that  I  had  found 
in  his  enormous  manure-heap.'  Thus  wrote  the 
recluse  of  Ferney  to  a  friend,  and  in  this  spirit 
was  prepared  his  communication  to  the  Academy. 
The  protest  was  read  at  the  session  of  August  25, 
1776,  and  its  success,  for  the  hour  at  least,  was 
complete.  A  year  or  two  later,  and  only  a  few 
weeks  before  his  death,  Voltaire  inscribed  his  last 
tragedy  to  the  Academy,  and  took  occasion  to  re- 
new the  attack.  The  letter  ended  with  these 


Shakespeare  in  France          41 

words  :  l  Shakespeare  is  a  savage  with  sparks  of 
genius  that  shine  in  a  horrible  night.'  Thus 
closes  this  interesting  and  characteristic  episode 
in  Voltaire's  life,  and  with  it  what  is  most  signi- 
ficant about  the  history  of  the  fortunes  of  Shake- 
speare in  France  under  the  old  regime. 


Various  Views 


THE  TIE  THAT  BINDS. 

THE  beautiful  story  of  the  Athenian  captives  at 
Syracuse,  set  free  and  restored  with  all  honors  to 
their  fatherland  because  they  could  recite  verses 
from  the  poet  best  beloved  of  their  captors,  has 
been  made  familiar  to  us  all  by  two  among  the 
noblest  works  of  Robert  Browning.     *  Any  such 
happy  man  had  prompt  reward,'  our  poet  tells  us, 
'If  he  lay  bleeding  on  the  battle-field 
They  stanched  his  wounds,  and  gave  him  drink  and  food  ; 
If  he  were  slave  i'  the  house,  for  reverence 
They  rose  up,  bowed  to  who  proved  master  now, 
And  bade  him  go  free,  thank  Euripides  ! 
Ay,  and  such  did  so  :  many  such,  he  said, 
Returning  home  to  Athens,  sought  him  out, 
The  old  bard  in  the  solitary  house, 
And  thanked  him  ere  they  went  to  sacrifice.' 

This  story  has  much  more  than  the  virtue  of  an 
anecdote  ;  it  has  rather  the  significance  of  an  eter- 
nal truth,  of  the  everlasting  power  of  literature 
to  reconcile  differences,  to  soften  the  asperities 
of  intercourse  between  nations,  to  strengthen  the 
bonds  of  sympathy  between  human  beings,  and  to 


The  Tie  That  Binds  43 

offer  promise  of  that '  Parliament  of  man,  the  Fed- 
eration of  the  world/  which  the  poet  still  insists 
upon  foreseeing,  however  idle  his  dream  be  held 
by  the  reluctant  and  short-sighted  multitude. 

While  the  vision  of  the  seer  halts  at  nothing 
short  of  this  ideal  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  finally 
accomplished,  he  whose  faith  is  less  firm  and 
whose  gaze  cannot  descry  things  hidden  so  deep 
in  the  mists  of  the  future  may  still  find  in  the 
possession  of  a  common  speech  some  earnest  of 
a  harmonious  union  for  all  to  whom  that  speech 
is  native.  Particularly  true  is  this  of  us  born  to 
the  use  of  the  English  language, 

'  Who  speak  the  tongue 

That  Shakespeare  spake,  the  faith  and  morals  hold 
Which  Milton  held.' 

A  common  language  is  the  tie  that  binds  men 
together  almost  in  spite  of  themselves.  This  is 
true  even  if  the  language  be  one  that  has  never 
risen  to  supreme  excellence  of  expression  upon 
the  lips  of  the  literary  artist.  A  striking  illustra- 
tion of  this  fact  is  offered  by  Miss  Olive  Schrei- 
ner,  in  her  account  of  the  uncouth  Taal  of  the 
Boer.  The  Boer  himself  is  of  mixed  Dutch  and 
Huguenot  strain,  and  his  speech  is  an  almost  in- 


44 


Various  Views 


conceivably  degraded  dialect  of  the  Dutch  tongue. 
It  is  absolutely  without  a  literature,  and  is  prob- 
ably incapable  of  originating  one.  Yet  it  has  fused 
into  a  compact  nationality  the  heterogeneous  ele- 
ments that  went  to  the  making  of  the  Boer,  and 
its  unifying  influence  compels  our  admiration  and 
our  respect.  If  this  be  the  power  of  a  rough  and 
poverty-stricken  dialect,  what  limits  may  be  set  to 
the  potency  of  so  rich  and  refined  an  instrument 
of  intercourse  as  the  English  language  ?  It  is  not 
from  mere  pride  of  race  that  the  philosophical 
observer  rejoices  in  the  amazing  spread  of  the 
English  language  over  the  face  of  the  earth.  It  is 
rather  that  he  feels  the  immense  significance  to 
the  future  of  mankind  that  must  attach  to  an  ever- 
widening  use  of  the  tongue  in  whose  literature  are 
embodied  the  noblest  civic  and  ethical  ideals  of 
the  modern  world. 

Ten  generations  have  now  followed  one  an- 
other since  the  man  who  in  English  speech  gave 
supreme  expression  to  these  ideals  was  with  us  in 
the  flesh.  It  is  three  centuries  since  the  gentlest, 
and  wisest,  and  deepest  of  modern  souls  was 
building  the  monument  of  song  that  none  knew 
better  than  himself  l  would  outlive  the  perishing 


The  Tie  That  Binds  45 

body  of  men  and  things  till  the  Resurrection  of 
the  Dead.'  And  who  will  dare  say  that  the  work 
of  Shakespeare  is  more  than  barely  begun  ?  Year 
after  year  we  commemorate  the  anniversary  of 
his  birth,  and  each  year  we  look  back  with  rever- 
ence to  the  past  because  of  the  promise  that  it 
gives  us  for  the  future.  The  words  spoken  a 
few  years  ago  at  the  Stratford  celebration  by  the 
man  who  so  worthily  represented  among  the 
English  people  the  best  elements  of  American 
culture,  and  the  message  of  good-will  sent  to  the 
Birmingham  gathering  by  the  Chief  Magistrate 
of  our  Republic,  were  both  expressions  of  the 
feeling  that  a  common  claim  to  Shakespeare  con- 
stitutes between  England  and  the  United  States 
a  bond  of  union  too  strong  to  be  broken  by  dif- 
ferences that  might  cause  other  nations  to  fly  at 
one  another's  throats,  too  sacred  to  be  made  the 
sport  of  political  passion  or  weakened  by  petty 
international  jealousies. 

The  Philistine,  we  suppose,  smiled  at  Mr. 
Cleveland's  message,  deeming  it  a  bit  of  inef- 
fectual but  harmless  sentimentality,  yet  the  mes- 
sage embodied  a  deeper  truth  than  ever  entered 
into  the  self-satisfied  Philistine  consciousness. 


46  Various  Views 

Doubtless,  also,  he  smiled  at  Mr.  Bayard's  asser- 
tion that  America  claimed  Shakespeare  no  less 
than  England,  yet  that  too  is  the  deepest  kind  of 
a  truth.  There  is  much  reason  to  believe  that 
the  teaching  of  American  history  in  our  public 
schools  leaves  dominant  in  the  child's  mind  an 
impression  that  England  is  our  hereditary  enemy. 
How  much  better  it  would  be,  and  how  much 
more  essentially  just,  to  emphasize  the  fact  that, 
although  temporary  differences  have  now  and 
then  arisen  between  the  two  nations,  yet  these 
are  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  glory  of 
their  common  inheritance;  that  English  history, 
from  Alfred  to  Cromwell,  belongs  to  us  as  right- 
fully as  to  our  kinsmen  over-sea,  and  should  be 
to  us  a  source  of  no  less  pride  than  that  we  justly 
take  in  the  continuation  of  the  history  through 
Washington  down  to  Lincoln.  That  this  is  the 
view  ultimately  to  obtain  among  the  English- 
speaking  peoples  seems  to  us  certain.  The  very 
stars  in  their  courses  are  working  to  bring  it 
about,  and  the  quiet,  irresistible  influence  of  a 
common  intellectual  tradition  will  some  day  ac- 
complish a  closer  and  more  vital  union  between 
the  scattered  sections  of  the  English  family  than 


The  Tie  That  Binds  47 

was  ever  cemented  by  bond  of  dynasty  or  political 
organization  in  the  history  of  the  world.  There 
is  a  larger  patriotism  than  that  of  the  state,  a  wider 
fellowship  than  that  of  the  geographical  area ;  it 
is  in  community  of  achievement  and  aspiration 
that  men  are  in  truth  brothers,  and  it  is  in  litera- 
ture that  they  find  their  real  relationship. 

The  mutterings  of  war  between  the  two  great 
English-speaking  peoples  not  long  ago  called 
forth  by  a  reckless  play  in  the  politico-diplomatic 
game  have  not  been  wholly  evil  in  their  effect. 
If  they  were  accompanied  by  a  melancholy  dis- 
play of  truculence  on  the  part  of  time-serving 
politicians  and  journalists,  they  also  served  to 
make  clear  the  almost  absolute  unanimity  of  the 
better  elements  of  English-speaking  society  in 
rejecting  the  thought  of  such  a  war  as  a  horror 
unspeakable  and  unthinkable.  That  it  would  be 
essentially  civil  war  was  the  general  verdict  of 
sober-minded  observers,  for  the  essential  charac- 
teristic of  civil  war  is  that  the  opposing  forces 
should  be  sharers  of  the  same  sympathies  and 
ideals,  whether  sharing  or  not  the  same  govern- 
mental machinery.  If  all  civilized  nations  knew 
each  other  as  well  as  the  sections  of  the  English 


48  Various  Views 

race  know  each  other,  all  war  would  be  civil  war, 
and  burdened  with  the  awful  responsibilities  of 
such  strife.  The  jingoes  and  the  fomenters  of 
international  ill-feeling  are  poor  prophets.  We 
prefer  to  pin  our  faith  to  the  prophecy  of  the  dis- 
tinguished Englishman  who  once  spoke  to  the 
members  of  the  Harvard  Law  School.  Upon 
that  occasion,  Sir  Frederick  Pollock,  discussing 
4  The  Vocation  of  the  Common  Law,'  brought 
his  remarks  to  a  close  with  a  peroration  so  sig- 
nificant and  so  eloquent  that  we  cannot  resist 
the  temptation  to  borrow  it  for  the  adornment  of 
our  own  discussion  of  so  nearly  allied  a  theme. 
1  Dreams  are  not  versed  in  issuable  matter,  and 
have  no  dates.  Only  I  feel  that  this  one  looks 
forward,  and  will  be  seen  as  waking  light  some 
day.  If  anyone,  being  of  little  faith  or  over- 
curious,  must  needs  ask  in  what  day,  I  can  an- 
swer only  in  the  same  fashion.  We  may  know 
the  signs,  though  we  know  not  when  they  will 
come.  These  things  will  be  when  we  look  back 
on  our  dissensions  in  the  past  as  brethren  grown 
up  to  man's  estate  and  dwelling  in  unity  look 
back  upon  the  bickerings  of  the  nursery  and  the 
jealousies  of  the  class-room ;  when  there  is  no  use 


The  Tie  That  Binds  49 

for  the  word  "  foreigner  "  between  Cape  Wrath 
and  the  Rio  Grande,  and  the  federated  navies  of 
the  English-speaking  nations  keep  the  peace  of 
the  ocean  under  the  Northern  Lights  and  under 
the  Southern  Cross,  from  Vancouver  to  Sydney, 
and  from  the  Channel  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  ; 
when  an  indestructible  union  of  even  wider  grasp 
and  higher  potency  than  the  federal  bond  of  these 
States  has  knit  our  descendants  into  an  invincible 
and  indestructible  concord.' 


50  Various  Views 


INTERNATIONAL  AMITY. 

A  FULL  generation  has  now  passed  since  the 
publication  of  4  The  Coming  Race/  by  the 
versatile  novelist  who  had  given  us  books  as 
various  as  c  Pelham,'  c  A  Strange  Story,' 4  Harold/ 
4  The  Caxtons,'  and  c  Kenelm  Chillingly.'  This 
forecast  was  impressive  in  many  ways,  but  in 
no  way  more  impressive  than  in  its  assertion 
that  war  would  eventually  be  made  impossible 
through  improvements  in  the  means  of  destruc- 
tion. Weapons  would  become  so  deadly  that  war 
would  practically  mean  annihilation  of  the  con- 
tending forces,  and  the  good  sense  of  the  nations 
would  prevail  in  the  abandonment  of  this  barbaric 
way  of  settling  disputes.  The  past  thirty  years 
have  witnessed,  not  exactly  the  literal  fulfillment 
of  this  prediction,  but  marked  progress  in  the 
direction  of  its  fulfillment,  and,  as  a  natural  con- 
sequence of  the  increased  effectiveness  of  fighting 
instruments,  a  marked  reluctance  to  resort  to  the 
arbitrament  of  war. 


International  Amity  51 

Within  much  more  recent  years,  a  great  Rus- 
sian authority  upon  the  art  of  war,  as  well  as  a 
man  of  the  widest  experience  in  practical  affairs, 
has  argued  with  convincing  logic  that  war  is  fast 
becoming  a  practical  impossibility.  This  be- 
neficent result  of  scientific  progress  is  due,  not 
simply,  as  in  Bulwer's  argument,  because  of  the 
increasing  deadliness  of  weapons,  but  rather  be- 
cause, with  this  increasing  deadliness,  the  advan- 
tage to  the  defense  becomes  so  much  greater  than 
the  advantage  to  the  attack  that  all  wars  of  the 
ordinary  type,  in  which  an  invading  army  seeks 
to  conquer  a  foreign  country,  must  henceforth  be 
so  hopelessly  one-sided  as  to  be  entirely  futile. 
The  position  of  the  late  M.  de  Bloch  has  received 
ample  confirmation  during  the  course  of  the  dis- 
tressing struggles  of  late  years,  in  South  Africa 
and  the  Philippine  Islands,  and  the  lesson  of  these 
conflicts  is  not  likely  to  be  missed.  Entirely  aside 
from  the  moral  issues  involved,  both  of  these  wars 
have  borne  out  the  essential  assertion  of  M.  de 
Bloch  that  a  small  body  of  men,  armed  with  the 
modern  means  of  defense,  can  resist,  for  an  in- 
definite period,  an  invading  body  of  overwhelm- 
ingly superior  strength.  In  making  this  principle 


52  Various  Views 

clear,  it  may  well  happen  that  these  wars  will 
prove  to  have  been  blessings  in  disguise,  and  that 
the  last  turning-point  in  the  centuries  may  prove 
to  have  been  a  real  turning-point  in  the  history 
of  mankind. 

A  glance  at  the  European  situation  seems  to 
us  also  to  offer  reassuring  signs.  A  few  years  ago 
a  general  conflict  of  the  powers  seemed  inevitable, 
and  it  was  doubtful  whether  the  century  would 
end  without  the  precipitation  of  hostilities.  To- 
day the  danger  seems  far  less  imminent,  and  it 
looks  as  if  the  great  international  rivalries  and 
jealousies  might  somehow  be  settled  by  peaceful 
means.  There  is  the  Hague  Conference,  for 
example.  It  is  customary  to  speak  slightingly  of 
that  remarkable  gathering,  but  it  was  nevertheless 
symptomatic  of  the  growing  strength  of  cosmo- 
politan opinion.  This  is  a  factor  in  warfare  which 
must  henceforth  be  recognized,  and,  while  it  has 
not  averted  the  deplorable  wars  of  the  last  few 
years,  it  has  made  those  responsible  for  them  feel 
very  uncomfortable.  We  have  little  doubt  that 
the  historian  of  the  future  will  look  back  to  the 
Tsar's  eirenicon  as  to  the  beginning  of  a  new  era 
in  international  relations,  and  that  the  permanent 


International  Amity  53 

tribunal  which  remains  as  the  substantial  result  of 
the  Hague  Conference  will  be  invoked  more  than 
once. 

The  growing  conviction  of  the  impossibility  of 
accomplishing  by  means  of  warfare  what  has  been 
easily  accomplished  by  the  stronger  force  in  past 
years  is  already  acting  as  a  quiet  deterrent  upon 
the  minds  of  generals  and  statesmen.  Cooperat- 
ing with  this  influence  is  the  other  influence  which 
comes  from  the  growth  of  international  sympathies 
and  the  cementing  of  the  bonds  of  friendship  in 
many  obtrusive  and  unobtrusive  ways.  There  is 
a  story  afloat  that  Prince  Henry  of  Prussia,  our 
recent  national  guest,  in  an  expansive  moment  said 
that  he  was  having  the  time  of  his  life  in  America, 
adding  that  when  at  home  they  only  used  him  to 
send  to  funerals.  Certainly  a  better  use  has  been 
found  for  him  than  that,  when  his  few  days'  stay 
in  this  country  has  been  productive  of  so  much 
good-will  and  mutual  esteem  between  the  two 
great  nations  concerned  in  the  exchange  of  cour- 
tesies. When  the  surface-character  of  the  visit, 
its  pomp  and  its  parade,  shall  have  been  forgotten, 
when  the  tumult  and  the  shouting  shall  have  died 
away,  its  symbolical  character  will  remain  as  the 


54  Various  Views 

one  memorable  thing  about  it,  and  will  be  likely 
to  influence  the  relations  between  Germany  and 
America  for  many  years  to  come.  The  visit  will 
remain  a  gracious  memory  long  after  the  glitter  of 
the  event  shall  have  grown  dim  in  our  recollection. 
Another  recent  event  of  similar  significance 
was  the  visit  of  the  Baron  d'Estournelles  de  Con- 
stant, bearing  the  greetings  of  the  great  European 
Republic  to  its  sister  Republic  in  the  West.  This 
distinguished  statesman,  journeying  from  Paris  to 
Chicago  for  the  express  purpose  of  paying  a 
Frenchman's  tribute  to  the  memory  of  the  greatest 
of  Americans,  pleaded  in  eloquent  terms  for  the 
cause  of  international  good-will,  for  the  sinking  of 
political  jealousies  and  commercial  rivalries  in  the 
larger  interests  of  the  common  humanity  of  the 
race,  and  wherever  he  spoke  his  noble  idealism  — 
which  is  nevertheless  that  of  a  practical  man  of 
the  world — aroused  echoes  of  responsive  sym- 
pathy in  the  breasts  of  his  hearers.  Now  the 
influence  which  is  represented  by  such  visits  as 
these,  and  supplemented  by  the  many  other 
modern  agencies  which  tend  to  the  creation  of  a 
mutual  understanding  between  our  own  people 
and  those  of  a  foreign  country,  amounts  in  the 


International  Amity  55 

total  sum  to  an  incalculably  great  force  exerted 
in  the  interests  of  civilization  and  for  the  removal 
of  ancient  prejudice.  Whenever  men  are  brought 
together  on  the  basis  of  a  common  interest, 
whether  intellectual  or  social,  the  racial  barriers 
first  raised  between  them  are  at  once  cast  down, 
and  are  as  if  they  had  never  existed.  Every  inter- 
national gathering  of  men  of  politics,  of  science, 
or  of  literature,  offers  a  silent  but  effective  protest 
against  the  passions  which  set  nations  at  war  with 
one  another. 

We  do  not  expect  that  the  world  will  be 
swayed  by  reason  alone  for  many  generations  yet. 
Nevertheless,  the  ascendancy  of  reason  is  by  slow 
degrees  making  itself  felt.  In  spite  of  all  dis- 
couragements, c  man  is  being  made,'  in  Tenny- 
son's phrase,  and 

« Prophet-eyes  may  catch  a  glory  slowly  gaining  on  the 
shade.' 

To  the  logical  mind  the  outcome  of  the  evolu- 
tionary process,  however  long-delayed,  is  sure. 
Such  a  mind  must  admit  that  even  patriotism  is 
selfishness,  although  at  several  removes  from  what 
we  commonly  call  by  that  name.  There  is  the 
selfishness  of  the  individual,  first  of  all,  which  has 


56  Various  Views 

no  redeeming  quality.  Then  there  is  the  selfish- 
nessof  the  family,  in  which  the  element  of  altruism 
first  appears.  Then  there  is  the  selfishness  of  the 
clan,  the  nation,  and  the  race,  and  in  each  of  these 
stages  of  the  sentiment  the  altruistic  character 
becomes  more  and  more  marked,  until  the  clear 
thinker  finds  it  impossible  to  believe  that  even 
race  should  set  an  absolute  barrier  to  his  sympa- 
thies, or  that  anything  less  than  the  whole  of  man- 
kind should  be  held  in  his  affection.  To  take 
this  final  step  to  a  complete  altruism  is,  no  doubt, 
to  overcome  the  'last  infirmity  of  noble  mind,'  — 
no  easy  task,  —  yet  was  it  not  taken  by  a  Roman 
freedman  over  two  thousand  years  ago,  and  did 
not  the  audience  in  the  Roman  theatre  greet 
with  thunders  of  applause  the  famous  line  which 
declared  that  no  man  may  remain  unconcerned 
by  aught  that  touches  the  interests  of  humanity 
at  large  ? 


Hero-Worship  57 


HERO-WORSHIP. 

SEVERAL  years  ago,  Professor  John  W.  Burgess 
made  some  suggestive  remarks,  which  we  are 
about  to  quote,  upon  the  ethics  of  hero-worship. 
Their  immediate  application  was  to  the  American 
anti-slavery  agitation  and  the  John  Brown  cult, 
but  they  convey  a  lesson  and  a  warning  that 
should  be  taken  to  heart  in  connection  with 
many  other  subjects,  not  only  in  the  department 
of  political  history,  but  in  all  the  fields  of  human 
endeavor.  i  I  consider,'  he  said, '  that  the  highest 
responsibility  resting  upon  an  historian  is  the 
right  selection  of  those  personalities  which  he 
holds  up  for  the  worship  of  after  generations. 
The  morals  of  the  age  are  determined  most 
largely  by  the  character  of  its  heroes.  No 
amount  of  precept,  religious  or  ethical,  will  have 
one  tithe  of  the  influence  in  forming  the  ideals 
of  our  youth  that  hero-worship  possesses.  If 
there  is,  then,  one  moment  more  solemn  than 
another  in  the  life  of  the  historian,  one  when  he 


58  Various  Views 

should  seek  more  earnestly  than  at  another  to  be 
delivered  from  all  prejudice,  error,  and  weakness, 
it  is  when  he  essays  the  role  of  the  hero-maker. 
If  he  fails  in  this,  he  may  well  question  if  all  the 
other  good  he  may  have  accomplished  has  not 
been  over-balanced.  There  is  a  mawkish  notion 
prevalent  among  the  members  of  a  certain  very 
advanced  class  of  people  in  almost  all  parts  of  the 
world,  that  if  you  add  cant  to  crime  you  lessen  the 
crime.  Some  of  them  think  that  the  outcome  of 
such  a  combination  is  the  most  heroic  virtue.  All 
of  us  judge  crime  more  leniently  when  committed 
by  persons  who  have  views  in  common  with  us 
upon  some  important  subject,  and  against  persons 
whom  we  regard  with  feelings  of  hostility.  But 
the  moralist,  the  historian,  and  the  inventor  of 
epics  are  under  bonds  to  civilization  to  rise  above 
such  weakness.' 

The  false  kind  of  sentiment  that  is  here  con- 
demned in  such  impressive  terms  has  done  much 
mischief  in  perverting  the  ethical  judgments 
passed  by  mankind  upon  the  conspicuous  figures 
of  history.  In  ancient  times,  it  deified  Alexander 
the  Great  and  Julius  Caesar,  to  say  nothing  of  a 
long  line  of  lesser  conquerors  and  leaders  of  vie- 


Hero-Worship  59 

torious  hosts.  In  our  own  century,  it  has  made 
of  Napoleon  a  subject  for  eulogy  rather  than  for 
execration,  it  has  in  a  measure  justified  the  career 
of  the  man  of  c  blood  and  iron '  who  looms  so 
large  in  the  history  of  modern  Germany,  and  it 
has  recently  been  engaged  in  glossing  over  the 
unscrupulous  methods  of  the  ambitious  adven- 
turer who  came  to  regard  South  Africa  as  his 
own  personal  appanage.  It  would  seem,  indeed, 
when  we  consider  these  and  the  many  similar 
cases  which  history  presents  to  our  view,  that 
success,  by  whatever  means  achieved,  is  too  often 
taken  by  the  public  as  the  adequate  test  of  great- 
ness, and  that  a  man's  career  passes  for  heroic  if 
only  it  be  sufficiently  brilliant  to  attract  wide- 
spread attention,  and  sufficiently  daring  to  im- 
pose upon  the  imagination  of  men.  The  ethical 
philosopher,  of  course,  bases  his  judgment  upon 
other  criteria  than  these,  for  he  knows  that  failure 
is  often  more  heroic  than  success,  and  that  many 
a  mute  inglorious  career,  with  which  only  the  few 
are  acquainted,  may  offer  a  finer  example  for  the 
emulation  of  mankind  than  is  offered  by  the  lives 
of  those  who  shine  in  the  fierce  light  that  beats 
upon  the  seats  of  the  mighty. 


60  Various  Views 

Carlyle  has  done  much  to  glorify  the  type  of 
man  who  succeeds  by  sheer  strength  of  will,  and 
the  gospel  of  brute  force  has  collected  a  singular 
company  in  his  gallery  of  heroic  figures.  Yet  it 
is  from  Carlyle  himself  that  we  have  chosen  a 
passage  which  emphasizes,  better  than  it  has  often 
been  emphasized,  the  eternal  distinction  between 
the  strength  that  should  command  our  admiration 
and  the  strength  that  is  perversely  employed.  *  A 
certain  strong  man,  of  former  time,  fought  stoutly 
at  Lepanto ;  worked  stoutly  as  Algerine  slave ; 
stoutly  delivered  himself  from  .  such  working; 
with  stout  cheerfulness  endured  famine  and  na- 
kedness and  the  world's  ingratitude ;  and  sitting 
in  jail,  with  the  one  arm  left  him,  wrote  our  joy- 
fullest,  and  all  but  our  deepest,  modern  book,  and 
named  it  u  Don  Quijote  ":  this  was  a  genuine 
strong  man.  A  strong  man,  of  recent  time,  fights 
little  for  any  good  cause  anywhere  ;  works  weakly 
as  an  English  lord  ;  weakly  delivers  himself  from 
such  working;  with  weak  despondency  endures 
the  cackling  of  plucked  geese  at  St.  James  ;  and, 
sitting  in  sunny  Italy,  in  his  coach-and-four,  at  a 
distance  of  two  thousand  miles  from  them,  writes, 
over  many  reams  of  paper,  the  following  sentence, 


Hero-Worship  61 

with  variations :  "  Saw  ever  the  world  one  greater 
or  unhappier  ?  "  This  was  a  sham  strong  man. 
Choose  ye.'  While  this  comparison,  in  its  strain- 
ing for  antithetical  effects,  is  not  altogether  fair 
to  Byron,  whose  life  was  at  least  closed  by  a 
piece  of  genuine  heroism,  yet  in  the  main  it  en- 
forces a  lesson  that  should  be  taken  to  heart. 
The  Byronic  cult  was  undoubtedly  in  its  day  re- 
sponsible for  a  great  deal  of  sickly  sentimentalism, 
and  its  influence  still  lingers  in  English  literature. 
As  contrasted  with  Shelley's  ardent  and  high- 
souled  devotion  to  great  causes  and  fine  ideals, 
the  passion  of  Byron  at  its  best  seems  theatrical 
and  insincere,  and  the  gospel  ofcChilde  Harold' 
is  but  a  poor  thing  when  viewed  in  the  glowing 
light  of  the  l  Prometheus  Unbound.' 

In  literature,  as  in  other  departments  of  human 
activity,  there  are  sham  heroes  as  well  as  genuine 
ones.  This  statement  is  not  meant  to  imply  that  a 
writer  whose  private  life  will  not  bear  the  closest 
scrutiny  is  for  that  reason  unheroic  as  a  literary 
figure,  for  the  weakness  of  will  by  which  per- 
sonal conduct  is  so  often  misshapen  may  coexist 
with  an  intellectual  life  of  the  rarest  distinction. 
And  since  the  essential  thing  about  a  writer  is 


62  Various  Views 

his  work,  he  has  a  right  to  be  judged  by  that 
work,  almost  irrespective  of  the  life  that  lies  be- 
hind it.  The  figure  of  Schopenhauer,  for  example, 
is  one  of  the  most  heroic  in  literature,  although 
the  character  of  the  man,  as  apart  from  the  writer, 
left  much  to  be  desired.  But  the  noble  sincerity 
of  his  work,  and  its  exaltation  of  fine  ideals  in 
both  thought  and  conduct,  are  qualities  so  marked 
that  we  are  quite  justified  in  ignoring  the  unlovely 
aspects  of  the  personal  biography.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  most  conspicuous  of  literary  figures  may 
fail  to  assume  heroic  proportions  if  the  work  for 
which  it  stands  have  any  suggestion  of  pose  or 
insincerity.  We  may  be  very  indulgent  to  the 
infirmities  of  the  flesh,  provided  only  they  do  not 
fetter  or  drag  down  the  spirit.  There  is  a  false 
ring,  which  no  sounding  rhetoric  can  altogether 
deaden  to  the  discerning  ear,  in  the  work  of  many 
masterful  writers,  and  when  that  ring  is  once 
detected,  the  power  of  the  voice  to  shape  our  in- 
tellectual ideals  becomes  sadly  weakened.  This 
false  note  may  be  caught  over  and  over  again  in 
Byron ;  it  makes  the  Whitman  cult  seem  a  strange 
phenomenon  to  minds  entirely  well-balanced  and 


Hero-Worship  63 

sane,  and  it  lessens  the  effective  appeal  of  even 
such  giants  as  Hugo  and  Carlyle. 

When  we  think  of  certain  figures  in  literature 
as  peculiarly  heroic,  we  do  not  usually  stop  for 
analysis,  but  are  content  to  rest  the  judgment 
upon  a  mixture  of  impressions,  in  part  derived 
from  the  life,  and  in  part  from  the  work.  Scott 
and  Balzac  are  good  examples  of  this,  for  both 
are  heroic  figures  in  a  very  genuine  sense,  and 
we  hardly  know  whether  to  admire  them  the 
more  for  their  courageous  struggle  against  adverse 
material  conditions  or  for  their  resolute  pursuit 
of  a  great  creative  purpose.  Instead  of  taking 
these  men  for  our  illustration,  let  us  take  instead 
a  man  who  was  a  hero  of  literature  pure  and 
simple,  a  man  whose  career  has  for  the  literary 
worker  the  same  sort  of  lessons  that  the  career 
of  Spinoza  has  for  the  philosopher,  of  Gordon 
for  the  soldier,  or  of  Mazzini  for  the  statesman. 
The  man  is  Gustave  Flaubert,  and  our  task  is 
made  easy  by  borrowing  from  an  eloquent  address 
made  at  Oxford  by  M.  Paul  Bourget.  c  No  man 
was  ever  more  richly  endowed  with  the  higher 
virtues  of  a  great  literary  artist,'  says  M.  Bourget. 


64  Various  Views 

c  His  whole  existence  was  one  long  struggle 
against  circumstances  and  against  himself,  to  live 
up  to  that  ideal  standard  as  a  writer  which  he 
had  set  before  himself  from  his  earliest  years. 
.  .  .  He  remains  ever  present  among  us,  in  spite 
of  the  new  developments  assumed  by  contempo- 
rary French  literature,  for  he  gave  to  all  writers 
the  most  splendid  example  of  passionate,  exclusive 
love  of  literature.  With  his  long  years  of  patient 
and  scrupulous  toil,  his  noble  contempt  of  wealth, 
honours,  and  popularity,  with  his  courage  in  pur- 
suing to  the  end  the  realization  of  his  dream,  he 
looms  upon  us  an  intellectual  hero.' 

And  yet  with  all  his  passion  for  the  impersonal, 
with  all  his  striving  to  view  life  from  the  outside, 
holding,  or  at  least  expressing,  '  no  form  of  creed, 
but  contemplating  all,'  the  final  lesson  of  Flau- 
bert's life  is,  as  his  eulogist  admits,  that  no  man 
may  wholly  exclude  himself  from  his  writings. 
Had  the  author  of1  Madame  Bovary  '  really  done 
so,  c  they  would  not  have  reached  us  all  imbued 
with  that  melancholy  savour,  that  subdued  pathos 
which  makes  them  so  dear  to  us.  ...  This 
gift  of  expressing  in  their  writings  more  than 
they  themselves  suspect,  and  of  achieving  results 


Hero-Worship  65 

exceeding  their  ambition,  is  only  granted  to  those 
courageous  and  sincere  geniuses  whose  past  trials 
have  gained  for  them  the  priceless  treasure  of  wide 
experience.  Thus  did  Cervantes  write  "  Don 
Quijote,"  and  Defoe  "  Robinson  Crusoe,"  little 
dreaming  that  they  infused  into  their  writings,  the 
former  all  the  glowing  heroism  of  Spain,  the  latter 
the  dogged  self-reliance  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  If 
they  had  not  themselves  for  many  years  practised 
these  virtues  of  chivalrous  enterprise  in  the  one 
case,  of  indomitable  endurance  in  the  other,  their 
books  would  have  been  what  they  intended  them 
to  be  —  mere  tales  of  adventure.  But  their  souls 
were  greater  than  their  art,  and  imbued  it  through- 
out with  that  symbolic  power  which  is  the  efficient 
vitality  of  books.  In  the  same  way  Flaubert's 
soul  was  greater  than  his  art,  and  it  is  that  soul 
which,  in  spite  of  his  own  will,  he  breathed  into 
his  writings,  gaining  for  them  a  place  apart  in  the 
history  of  the  contemporary  French  novel.'  Thus 
we  come  back,  after  all,  to  the  position  that 
heroism  in  literary  production  is  somehow  the 
outcome  or  reflex  of  something  heroic  in  the 
character  and  the  temper  of  the  writer.  It  may 
be  only  a  streak,  so  blended  with  others  as  to  be 


66  Various  Views 

almost  undiscernible  to  observers  of  the  man  apart 
from  his  books,  yet  it  is  the  deepest  and  truest 
part  of  him,  and  a  noble  book  of  any  sort  may 
well  give  pause  to  the  judgment  that  too  hastily 
condemns  a  man's  life  because  it  is  visibly  flawed. 
But  those  men  are  the  fittest  subjects  for  hero- 
worship  in  whom  the  life  and  the  word  are  the 
most  fully  consonant,  whose  lives  are  poems,  and 
whose  words  are  acts.  Such  a  hero  was  Goethe, 
with  his  lifelong  devotion  to  the  ideal  that  held 
the  whole  of  life  to  be  even  more  important  than 
its  separate  elements  of  the  good  and  the  beau- 
tiful ;  such  was  Milton,  whose  l  soul  was  like  a 
star,  and  dwelt  apart,'  and  yet  whose  heart  c  the 
lowliest  duties  on  herself  did  lay ';  such  was 
Dante,  whose  exiled  soul  still  4  possessed  the  sun 
and  stars,'  and  whose  divine  poem  was  wrought 
not  as  a  poem  merely,  but 

« With  close  heed 

Lest,  having  spent  for  the  work's  sake 
Six  days,  the  man  be  left  to  make.' 


A  Philistine  Watchword         67 


A  PHILISTINE  WATCHWORD. 

READERS  of  c  The  International  Journal  of  Eth- 
ics '  must  have  rubbed  their  eyes  when  they 
received  a  certain  number  of  that  earnest  and 
valuable  review,  and  found  its  first  score  of  pages 
devoted  to  the  great  achievement  of  Dr.  Nansen 
in  Arctic  exploration.  What  has  such  a  matter 
to  do  with  ethics  ?  they  may  well  have  asked,  and 
why  should  our  attention  be  diverted  to  the  deeds 
of  this  hardy  Norseman  when  all  our  intellectual 
energies  are  needed  for  the  examination  of  such 
engaging  subjects  as  '  the  relation  of  pessimism 
to  ultimate  philosophy,'  and  'our  social  and  ethical 
solidarity,'  and  l  the  history  and  spirit  of  Chinese 
ethics,'  to  instance  a  few  of  the  themes  discussed 
within  the  same  covers.  The  fact  that  Mr.  Leslie 
Stephen  was  responsible  for  this  diversion  gave 
promise,  indeed,  of  a  high  degree  of  intellectual 
entertainment ;  but  one  had  to  get  well  along  into 
the  essay  before  discovering  what  Dr.  Nansen 
was  really  doing  in  this  galley.  The  name  of  the 


68  Various  Views 

writer  was,  of  course,  sufficient  to  warrant  the 
conclusion  that  the  choice  of  subject  would  prove 
to  be  justified,  even  for  the  purposes  of  a  'jour- 
nal  of  ethics';  and  the  event  showed  that  some 
of  the  deepest  matters  underlying  the  general 
problem  of  conduct  might  be  involved  in  the  story 
of  the  explorer  and  the  stanch  ship  that  drifted 
with  the  northern  ice-cap  across  the  circumpolar 
seas. 

There  is,  to  put  it  bluntly,  no  ethical  problem 
of  greater  importance  than  that  which  emerges 
from  the  consideration  of  just  such  activities  as 
were  so  magnificently  displayed  by  the  expedition 
of  Dr.  Nansen.  It  is  the  fundamental  problem 
of  utilitarianism,  and  the  most  searching  analysis 
is  needed  before  we  can  hope  to  straighten  it  out. 
Into  all  discussions  of  this  problem  the  philistine 
shibboleth  of  the  4  practical '  forces  its  way,  and 
puts  such  questions  as  these:  cls  it  not  wrong  to 
admire  men  whose  fine  qualities  run  more  or  less 
to  waste ;  or,  if  that  cannot  be  said,  that  might 
have  been  applied  to  some  purpose  of  more  im- 
portance to  the  welfare  of  mankind  ?  To  admire 
simplicity,  daring,  vigor,  and  good  comradeship, 
is  of  course  right ;  but  ought  we  not,  it  may  be 


A  Philistine  Watchword         69 

asked,  to  regret  all  the  more  their  devotion  of 
these  virtues  to  inadequate  ends  ? ' 

Mr.  Stephen  finds  no  difficulty  in  answering 
these  questions  to  the  confutation  of  their  Philis- 
tine proponent.  '  You  admit,'  he  says  to  the 
short-sighted  utilitarian  who  can  see  nothing 
beyond  the  immediate  consequences  of  a  given 
display  of  effort,  '  you  admit  in  some  sense  that 
the  main  end  of  conduct  should  be  to  promote 
the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number; 
and  yet  the  precepts  which  you  deduce  from  your 
principles  seem  to  imply  a  colorless  monotony 
and  a  life  uncheered  by  any  pursuits  enjoyable  in 
themselves.'  Grouping  the  work  of  Arctic  ex- 
peditions with  other  scientific  work,  and  with  art 
and  literature,  as  constituting  all  together  a  sort 
of  c  play,'  he  says  :  '  The  justification  for  play, 
if  we  may  call  that  play  which  involves  most 
strenuous  labor,  must  take  a  different  ground. 
One  ground  is  that  the  energy  which  has  had 
no  directly  utilitarian  aim  has  been  of  most  essen- 
tial service  to  mankind  ;  that,  if  the  world  has  im- 
proved even  in  the  sense  of  being  able  to  support 
a  larger  population  in  moderate  comfort,  the  im- 
provement has  been  owing  not  simply  nor  perhaps 


70  Various  Views 

chiefly  to  those  who  have  consciously  labored  to 
redress  grievances  and  remove  causes  of  misery, 
but  to  men  who  have  pursued  intellectual  aims, 
scientific  or  artistic,  for  the  pure  love  of  art  or 
science.'  And  he  concludes  by  saying  that  4  the 
true  doctrine  seems  to  be  that  it  is  an  imperative 
duty  for  a  man  to  devote  his  intellect  to  those 
purposes,  whatever  they  may  be,  to  which  it  is 
most  fitted.' 

The  spokesmen  of  the  c  practical '  have  done 
so  much  in  all  ages,  and  are  still  doing  so  much, 
to  chill  enthusiasms  and  to  narrow  the  scope  of 
life,  that  we  make  no  apology  for  recurring  to  this 
well-worn  theme,  and  pointing  out  once  more  the 
essential  misconception  of  those  well-intentioned 
but  purblind  persons.  4  Why  was  this  waste  of 
the  ointment  made  ? '  is  a  question  that  we  hear 
repeated,  in  various  disguises,  every  day  of  our 
lives.  Now  there  are  two  satisfactory  answers 
to  the  question  in  all  of  its  forms  :  one  of  them 
faces  the  utilitarian  critic  upon  his  own  plane 
and  leaves  him  no  ground  upon  which  to  stand, 
while  the  other  makes  the  radical  demand  that  he 
broaden  his  conception  of  utility  and  rearrange 
his  notions  of  conduct  in  accordance  with  a  far 


A  Philistine  Watchword         71 

finer  envisagement  of  the  purpose  of  human  life. 
The  first  answer  is  the  one  more  commonly 
made.  Mr.  Stephen,  for  example,  makes  it  in 
these  words  :  c  Knowledge  can  scarcely  be  ad- 
vanced in  any  direction  without  throwing  light 
upon  knowledge  in  general ;  and  the  devotion  of 
some  men  of  great  powers  to  minute  and  appar- 
ently remote  interests  is  really  to  be  admired 
because  it  constantly  leads  to  unforeseen  and 
important  results.'  The  history  of  science  is 
so  filled  with  illustrations  of  this  truth  that  we 
hardly  know  where  to  begin  in  making  a  selec- 
tion. Take  almost  any  of  the  achievements  of 
applied  science  and  trace  the  underlying  ideas 
back  to  their  genesis  in  the  brain  of  some  devoted 
investigator,  or,  reversing  the  process,  take  from 
the  annals  of  the  history  of  science  any  idea  that 
has  proved  fertile  and  show  what  extremely  prac- 
tical results  have  grown  out  of  it,  and,  in  which- 
ever way  we  construct  the  genealogy  of  our 
chosen  idea,  we  shall  be  filled  with  wonder  at  its 
consequences,  and  made  to  realize  that  such  c^n- 
sequences  must,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  be 
largely  or  wholly  unforeseen  when  the  idea  first 
springs  to  birth.  How  useless,  to  all  seeming, 


72  Various  Views 

were  the  early  studies  of  micro-organisms, — 
and  yet  these  studies  laid  the  foundation  for  the 
vast  benefactions  of  Pasteur  and  made  a  reality 
of  the  long-cherished  dream  of  a  rational  theory 
of  disease.  Or  how  could  Oersted,  or  the  most 
keen-sighted  of  his  contemporaries,  have  foreseen 
that  his  discovery  of  the  deflection  of  the  mag- 
netic needle  by  the  galvanic  current  was  to  make 
possible  all  the  countless  applications  of  electric- 
ity to  our  modern  life  ?  In  view  of  such  facts  as 
these,  how  childish  it  is  to  ask  of  every  new  con- 
tribution to  knowledge  that  it  at  once  justify  its 
existence  by  doing  something  for  man's  material 
comfort,  and  how  benighted  must  be  his  mental 
condition  who  scorns  every  new  scientific  truth 
that  may  not  at  once  be  put  to  some  practical 
use.  And,  to  return  to  the  immediate  theme  of 
this  discourse,  the  man  stands  intellectually  self- 
condemned  who  is  rash  enough  to  assert  that  the 
deep-sea  soundings  or  the  magnetic  and  meteor- 
ological observations  made  by  the  Nansen  expe- 
dition may  not  in  the  future  prove  to  have  fur- 
nished a  necessary  link  in  the  chain  of  reasoning 
whereby  some  vast  new  gift  shall  be  bestowed  by 
science  upon  human  life. 


A  Philistine  Watchword         73 

Strong  as  appears,  however,  the  argument 
above  outlined,  and  amply  sufficient  as  it  is  to 
answer  the  cut  bono?  of  the  Philistine  critic,  we 
are  not  content  to  rest  upon  it  the  case  for  science. 
For  there  always  underlies  the  discussion  of  this 
subject  a  source  of  misunderstanding  that  is  rarely 
probed.  The  respective  champions  of  science 
and  of  utilitarianism  may  be  using  the  same 
words,  but  they  are  not  speaking  the  same  lan- 
guage. In  employing  the  terms  which  they 
bandy  about  so  freely  —  such  terms,  for  example, 
as  4use,'  4  benefit,'  and  'practical  value' — they 
are  nearly  always  playing  at  cross-purposes,  and 
the  one  seldom  understands  what  the  other  really 
means.  Why  is  one  thing  more  practical  than 
another?  The  only  possible  answer  is  that  it 
contributes  more  directly  to  the  satisfaction  of 
some  desire.  But  how  great  is  the  arrogance 
of  those  who  single  out  certain  desires  of  a  sort 
relating  almost  wholly  to  matters  of  material 
comfort,  and  assume  that  those  desires  alone  are 
worthy  of  being  gratified  at  the  cost  of  any  effort. 
Is  a  desire  to  be  scorned  because  it  does  not 
happen  to  be  entertained  by  the  majority  of  un- 
thinking people,  and  is  the  quality  of  a  desire  to 


74  Various  Views 

count  for  nothing  in  this  calculus  of  ethical  val- 
ues? And  if  we  take  quality  into  the  reckoning, 
does  not  the  advancement  of  knowledge  minister 
to  the  best  of  all  desires  ?  The  search  after  truth 
is  an  end  in  itself,  and  nothing  can  be  more 
practical,  in  any  sense  of  the  term  worth  consid- 
ering, than  the  prosecution  of  that  high  quest. 
To  think  God's  thoughts  seemed  to  Kepler  a 
worthy  employment  for  his  best  intellectual  en- 
ergies, and 

'  To  follow  knowledge  like  a  sinking  star 
Beyond  the  utmost  bound  of  human  thought,' 

seemed  to  the  master-singer  of  our  own  age  the 
noblest  of  all  aims.  It  is  by  just  the  extent  to 
which  man  is  capable  of  entertaining  such  ideal 
ambitions  that  he  is  lifted  above  the  beast  of  the 
fields,  and  the  humanity  is  in  pitiable  case  that 
can  scorn  any  sincere  effort  to  strengthen  the 
foundations  of  the  temple  of  human  knowledge 
or  bear  its  dome  still  further  skyward. 


A  Question  of  Conscience        75 


A  QUESTION  OF  LITERARY 
CONSCIENCE. 

THERE  are  few  chapters  of  literary  criticism  that 
surpass,  in  display  of  subtle  insight  and  essential 
justice  of  conclusion,  the  well-known  essay  of 
Charles  Lamb  upon  the  artificial  comedy  of  the 
Restoration.  This  essay  has  always  been  a 
stumbling-block  to  the  Philistine,  and  will  always 
appear  paradoxical  to  the  reader  whose  intellect- 
ual perceptions  do  not  nicely  balance  his  moral 
prepossessions.  Macaulay,  as  we  know,  found 
it  both  a  paradox  and  a  stumbling-block,  and  as- 
sailed it  with  the  weaver's  beam  that  he  wielded 
with  such  redoubtable  energy.  But  in  spite  of 
the  attack  of  Macaulay,  and  of  other  persons 
defective  in  their  literary  sympathies,  the  ideas 
advanced  by  Lamb  in  this  essay  have  held  their 
own,  and  criticism  has  accepted  their  funda- 
mental validity.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
Lamb's  argument  runs,  in  substance,  to  the  effect 
that  the  writers  whom  he  defends  created  a  con- 


76  Various  Views 

ventional  world  of  their  own,  in  which  the  rules 
that  ordinarily  govern,  and  properly  should  gov- 
ern, human  conduct,  have  no  more  application 
than  the  rules  of  ordinary  probability  to  the  inci- 
dents of  a  Grimm  Mahrchen  or  an  Arabian  tale. 
Lamb  declared  himself  cglad  for  a  season  to  take 
an  airing  beyond  the  diocese  of  the  strict  con- 
science,' and  now  and  then  c  for  a  dream-while 
or  so,  to  imagine  a  world  with  no  meddling  re- 
strictions.' The  world  of  Congreve  and  Wych- 
erley  4is  altogether  a  speculative  scene  of  things, 
which  has  no  reference  whatever  to  the  world 
that  is.  ...  The  whole  is  a  passing  pageant, 
where  we  should  sit  as  unconcerned  at  the  issues, 
for  life  or  death,  as  at  a  battle  of  the  frogs  and 
mice.'  His  complaint  is  that  people  no  longer 
take  delight  in  the  pageant,  because  they  have 
grown  too  strenuous  in  their  literal-minded  inter- 
pretation of  the  show.  'Like  Don  Quixote,  we 
take  part  against  the  puppets,  and  quite  as  im- 
pertinently.' We  are  too  self-conscious  to  give 
ourselves  up  to  mere  distraction,  and  go  to  the 
theatre  not  lto  escape  from  the  pressure  of  reality 
so  much  as  to  confirm  our  experience  of  it;  to 
make  assurance  double,  and  take  a  bond  of  fate.' 


A  Question  of  Conscience        77 

The  fashion  of  the  Restoration  comedy  is  one 
that  has  now  passed  away  from  popular  interest, 
but  another  fashion  has  taken  its  place,  concern- 
ing which  Lamb's  argument  is  equally  to  the 
point.  This  is  the  fashion  of  romantic  fiction, 
toward  which  our  strenuous  moralists  are  apt  to 
assume  a  deprecatory  attitude,  upon  much  the 
same  grounds  that  served  as  a  basis  for  the 
condemnation  of  the  earlier  fashion.  Romantic 
fiction  is  essentially  unreal,  we  are  told  ;  it  does 
not  reflect  the  conditions  of  actual  life,  it  en- 
courages us  to  dream  instead  of  setting  us  face 
to  face  with  the  problems  of  human  existence, 
it  dissipates  our  energies  instead  of  enlisting  them 
in  behalf  of  worthy  social  and  intellectual  causes. 
The  charge  is  doubtless  true,  but  is  there  no 
place  for  dreams  in  the  economy  of  the  spiritual 
life?  Are  we  to  reject  the  ministry  of  every 
form  of  literature  that  takes  us  away  from  our 
surroundings,  or  is  not  closely  related  to  our  im- 
mediate pursuits  and  interests  ?  Entertainment 
may  not  be  the  highest  mission  of  literature,  but 
it  is  surely  a  legitimate  object  for  a  writer  to  set 
before  himself,  and  those  writers  who  offer  en- 
tertainment, in  whatever  fashion  the  hour  may 


78  Various  Views 

approve,  are  not  undeserving  of  the  public  and 
will  not  find  their  efforts  unrewarded.  To  say 
that  romantic  fiction  moves  in  an  unreal  world 
of  its  own  making  should  not  be  held  a  matter  for 
reproach;  it  should  rather  be  recognized  as  the 
necessary  condition  of  this  form  of  art,  and  should 
make  us  grateful  for  the  refuge  which  it  offers 
to  the  mind  oppressed  by  the  burden,  at  times  so 
intolerable,  of  the  actual  world.  The  art  of  fic- 
tion depends  upon  conventions  quite  as  fully  as 
does  the  dramatic  art.  The  action  must  be  com- 
pressed far  beyond  the  limits  of  probability,  and 
worked  out  with  small  regard  for  the  many  dis- 
turbing influences  by  which  it  would  certainly 
be  complicated  in  real  life.  The  villain  must 
be  foiled,  the  hero  must  triumph,  and  the  lovers 
must  be  united,  even  if  there  are  only  a  score  of 
pages  in  which  to  accomplish  all  these  things. 
Whatever  the  length  of  the  story,  these  are  its 
fundamental  requirements  ;  and  to  such  ends  all 
the  means  employed  by  the  writer  must  be  bent. 
Each  separate  scene,  moreover,  must  be  height- 
ened in  effect  far  beyond  anything  that  is  likely 
to  occur  in  everyday  life  ;  two  people  seated  side 
by  side  at  a  dinner-table  must  make  their  con- 


A  Question  of  Conscience       79 

versation  more  brilliant  than  any  that  was  ever 
actually  heard  upon  such  an  occasion  ;  the  mem- 
bers of  every  group  of  persons  brought  into  con- 
tact for  the  purposes  of  the  narrative  must  say 
and  do  just  the  right  things  at  the  right  moments, 
instead  of  floundering  about  in  act  and  speech 
as  they  doubtless  would  in  the  haphazard  actual 
world.  In  that  world,  as  the  poet  reminds  us, 
we  get  4  never  the  time  and  the  place  and  the 
loved  one  all  together ';  but  in  the  world  which 
the  romantic  imagination  creates  we  have  a  right 
to  expect  this  conjunction,  and  a  reason  for  jus- 
tifiable disappointment  if  it  is  missed. 

The  romance  of  pure  adventure  appeals  to 
some  of  our  healthiest  instincts.  Both  as  boys 
and  as  men,  we  like  to  follow  the  fortunes  of 
pirates,  to  read  about  shipwrecks  and  all  other 
sorts  of  forlorn  hopes,  and  to  applaud  the  deeds 
of  heroes  who  slay  their  enemies  right  and  left, 
and  escape  from  the  most  desperate  dangers  by 
feats  of  improbable  prowess  and  display  of  in- 
domitable if  not  superhuman  valor.  The  gen- 
tlest spirits  as  well  as  the  most  fiery  delight  in 
these  things,and  delight  in  them  precisely  because 
they  are  so  far  removed  from  ordinary  human 


8o  Various  Views 

experience.  They  are  the  happenings  of  a  world 
which,  at  least  when  we  have  outgrown  boyhood, 
we  have  no  desire  to  make  our  own,  a  world 
which  could  not  be  our  own  if  we  wished  it,  a 
world  which  we  frankly  recognize  as  imagined 
for  our  diversion.  We  should  ill  requite  those 
who  purvey  for  us  all  this  innocent  entertainment 
were  we  to  arraign  them  before  the  bar  of  con- 
science, to  make  stern  inquiry  into  the  probability 
of  their  imaginings,  and  to  pronounce  upon  the 
conduct  of  their  characters  such  severe  judg- 
ments as  would  doubtless  await  such  conduct  in 
the  courts  of  justice  of  our  prosaic  world. 

Nevertheless,  although  we  are  fully  persuaded 
of  the  right  of  romantic  fiction  to  exist  and  of  its 
heroes  to  perform  acts  which  would  not  bear  the 
test  of  a  prosaic  and  conventional  morality,  we 
are  not  without  certain  searchings  of  soul  when 
we  contemplate  the  enormous  vogue  enjoyed  by 
this  species  of  literature  at  the  present  day.  Of 
that  vogue  there  can  be  no  question.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  point  to  any  earlier  period  in  which 
popular  fiction  was  so  largely  made  up  of  tales 
of  adventure,  tales  whose  interest  centres  upon 
exploits  rather  than  principles,  upon  the  triumph 


A  Question  of  Conscience       81 

of  the  individual  will  rather  than  of  the  abstract 
ideal.  There  is  an  appalling  amount  of  blood- 
shed in  our  popular  romance,  and  an  almost  un- 
exampled degree  of  recklessness  in  the  choice  of 
means  for  the  desired  end.  One  need  not  be  a 
professional  moralist  to  correlate  this  illustration 
of  popular  taste  with  the  wave  of  brutality  which 
seems  to  be  sweeping  over  our  civilization,  and 
which  threatens  to  submerge  the  moral  territory 
that  has  been  reclaimed  at  so  great  a  cost  of  in- 
dividual and  collective  effort.  For  some  reason 
or  other,  the  finer  instincts  of  civilization  seem 
of  late  years  to  have  become  dulled,  and  both 
individuals  and  nations  are  suffered  without  effect- 
ive protest  to  commit  acts  which  should  arouse 
the  fiercest  indignation  for  their  contravention  of 
all  the  principles  by  which  nations  achieve  true 
greatness  and  individuals  bequeath  to  their  de- 
scendants a  heritage  of  honorable  fame.  We 
should  hardly  include  our  popular  literature 
among  the  active  causes  of  this  degenerative 
process,  but  it  may  not  be  unfair  to  regard  it  as 
symptomatic.  We  may  read  with  zest  the  pop- 
ular literature  which  glories  in  brute  force,  and 
we  may  get  no  harm  from  it  as  individuals ;  but 


82  Various  Views 

we*  must  '  view  with  alarm,'  as  the  political  plat- 
forms say,  the  ever-increasing  hold  which  this 
species  of  literature  is  gaining  upon  the  popular 
mind.  If  such  literature  does  not  directly  shape 
the  actions  of  men,  it  certainly  does  to  some 
extent  reflect  their  ideals,  and  its  present  prom- 
inence is  such  as  to  confront  the  literary  con- 
science with  a  serious  question.  Should  we, 
because  they  afford  us  such  admirable  enter- 
tainment, give  our  unqualified  approval  to  these 
writings  that  glorify  all  the  brutal  passions,  that 
move  in  a  world  unswayed  by  the  moral  law, 
and  that  substitute  for  the  Christian  precepts  a 
gospel  whereof  Carlyle  and  Nietzsche  are  the 
evangelists?  It  is  a  serious  question,  whether 
the  ideals  of  public  and  private  morality,  as  re- 
flected in  the  popular  literature  of  the  day,  which 
the  century  has  just  passed  on  to  the  present, 
will  bear  a  favorable  comparison  with  those  which 
were  bequeathed  to  the  last  century  by  its  pre- 
decessor. 


The  Artist  and  the  Man         83 


THE  ARTIST  AND  THE  MAN. 

AMONG  the  many  principles  for  which  the  late 
John  Ruskin  contended  with  all  the  force  of 
his  impassioned  and  vehement  eloquence,  there 
is  one  which  occupies  a  peculiarly  significant 
position.  It  is  the  principle  that  a  man's  art 
and  a  man's  character  are  so  mutually  dependent 
that  the  latter  is  implicit  in  the  former.  This 
principle  is  central  in  the  great  critic's  doctrine, 
for  it  supplies  the  nexus  whereby  his  ethics  and 
his  aesthetics  become  united  into  a  single  body 
of  teaching.  It  affords  the  justification  for  his 
constant  injection  of  moral  questions  into  his 
discussions  of  art,  and  for  his  persistent  employ- 
ment of  artistic  illustrative  material  in  his  treat- 
ment of  the  problems  that  relate  to  the  conduct 
of  life.  The  principle  in  question  finds  its  typi- 
cal expression  in  such  sentences  as  these  :  'The 
faults  of  a  work  of  art  are  the  faults  of  its  work- 
man, and  its  virtues  his  virtues.'  l  Great  art  is 
the  expression  of  the  mind  of  a  great  man,  and 


84  Various  Views 

mean  art,  that  of  the  want*  of  mind  of  a  weak 
man.'  c  And  always,  from  the  least  to  the  great- 
est, as  the  made  thing  is  good  or  bad,  so  is  the 
maker  of  it.'  l  When  once  you  have  learned 
how  to  spell  those  most  precious  of  all  legends, 
—  pictures  and  buildings,  —  you  may  read  the 
characters  of  men,  and  of  nations,  in  their  art, 
as  in  a  mirror ;  —  nay,  as  in  a  microscope, 
and  magnified  a  hundredfold  ;  for  the  character 
becomes  passionate  in  the  art,  and  intensifies 
itself  in  all  its  noblest  or  meanest  delights.'  Fi- 
nally, the  doctrine  of  these  pronouncements 
receives  summing-up  in  the  following  impressive 
fashion :  "  Of  all  facts  concerning  art,  this  is 
the  one  most  necessary  to  be  known,  that,  while 
manufacture  is  the  work  of  hands  only,  art  is 
the  work  of  the  whole  spirit  of  man  ;  and  as  that 
spirit  is,  so  is  the  deed  of  it ;  and  by  whatever 
power  of  vice  or  virtue  any  art  is  produced,  the 
same  vice  or  virtue  it  reproduces  and  teaches.' 

There  are  many  impulsive  sayings  to  be  found 
in  the  forty  or  fifty  volumes  of  Ruskin,  many 
opinions  too  clearly  born  of  a  moment's  intellect- 
ual caprice  to  be  deserving  of  more  than  a  mo- 
ment's attention,  but  these  which  we  have  quoted 


The  Artist  and  the  Man         85 

do  not  belong  to  that  category.  They  are  rather 
the  deliberate  records  of  a  lifelong  belief,  time 
and  time  again  solemnly  reaffirmed,  and  funda- 
mental to  a  comprehension  of  the  whole  structure 
of  their  author's  thought.  That  the  proposition 
which  they  embody  has  been  vigorously  denied 
is  matter  of  common  intelligence  among  those 
familiar  with  the  currents  of  critical  discussion 
during  the  past  half-century  or  more.  The  doc- 
trine of  4  art  for  art's  sake '  falls  to  pieces  unless 
we  reject  the  notion  that  the  character  of  the 
artist  is  reflected  in  his  work.  That  doctrine 
has  exerted  a  strong  influence  upon  criticism, 
and  there  was  a  time,  not  so  many  years  ago, 
when  it  seemed  to  hold  the  field  against  its  op- 
ponents. If  we  consider  the  case  of  literary  art 
alone,  there  were  two  excellent  reasons  for  the 
apparent  ascendancy  of  this  opinion  in  the  forum 
of  aesthetical  controversy.  The  first  was  offered 
by  the  fact  that  didacticism  in  literature  had 
been  greatly  overdone.  When  we  think  of  the 
long  and  dreary  annals  of  allegorical  composition 
and  sermonizing  in  verse,  we  naturally  revolt 
from  the  assumption  that  this  sort  of  activity 
has  anything  to  do  with  literature  proper,  and 


86  Various  Views 

it  gives  us  a  sense  of  satisfaction  to  take  refuge 
in  even  the  extreme  opinion  that  poetry  has 
no  business  to  teach  anything,  that  its  message 
is  one  of  pure  beauty,  and  that,  by  just  so  much 
as  it  departs  from  this  aim,  its  purpose  becomes 
weakened,  and  its  spiritual  power  impaired. 
The  second  reason  which  seemed  to  justify  the 
principle  of  l  art  for  art's  sake '  was  offered  by 
those  over-zealous  critics  of  literature  who  were 
constantly  dragging  petty  personalities  into  their 
work,  raising  a  great  pother  over  the  superficial 
aspects  of  a  poet's  private  life,  and  making  out 
of  some  carelessness  of  habit  or  fault  of  temper  a 
structural  defect  in  character  which  must  always 
be  kept  in  the  foreground  of  thought  when  the 
poet's  work  was  under  consideration.  It  was 
no  wonder  that  these  two  influences  combined 
drove  many  sensitive  intelligences  to  the  ex- 
treme of  revolt.  The  fact  that,  on  the  one  hand, 
such  didacticism  as  Young's  'Night  Thoughts' 
and  Pollok's  4  Course  of  Time '  could  pass  for 
poetry  at  all,  and  that,  on  the  other,  whole  sec- 
tions of  the  reading  public  should  be  warned 
against  the  poetry  of  Byron  and  Shelley  because 
their  lives  did  not  square  with  the  social  conven- 


The  Artist  and  the  Man         87 

tions  of  their  time  —  this  twofold  fact,  we  say, 
based  upon  a  false  perspective  and  a  complete 
misunderstanding  of  the  poetic  art,  was  amply 
sufficient  to  account  for  the  success  of  a  form 
of  teaching  whose  fundamental  object  was  to 
restore  to  poetry  the  dignity  which  it  seemed  to 
be  in  danger  of  losing. 

When,  however,  we  come  to  take  a  broader 
view  of  the  whole  question,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  doctrine  of  c  art  for  art's  sake,'  the  doc- 
trine that  the  artist  must  deliberately  eschew  the 
intention  of  teaching,  that,  if  he  have  the  divine 
fire  within  him,  the  purity  of  its  glow  will  remain 
undimmed  whatever  the  life  he  may  lead,  is 
almost  as  narrow  as  the  doctrine  against  which 
it  was  raised  in  protest.  Because  certain  dull 
poets  have  been  offensively  didactic  we  have  no 
right  to  say  that  poets  of  genius  may  not  engage 
their  powers  in  the  furtherance  of  worthy  ideals. 
That  some  great  poets  have  had  personal  failings, 
about  which  their  critics  have  been  more  curious 
than  was  necessary,  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
deny  that,  other  things  being  equal,  the  blameless 
life  will  in  the  long  run  express  itself  in  nobler 
forms  than  the  life  that  has  not  escaped  'the 


88  Various  Views 

contagion  of  the  world's  slow  stain.'  As  far  as 
the  latter  of  these  two  propositions  is  concerned, 
we  take  a  just  pride  in  the  thought  that  Milton 
and  Tennyson  were  no  less  great  as  men  than  as 
poets,  and,  while  giving  full  acceptance  as  poetry 
to  the  work  of  men  whose  character  we  may  not 
call  unblemished,  it  would  distinctly  add  to  our 
satisfaction  could  we  know  them  to  have  lived 
lives  in  stricter  consonance  with  their  ideals.  As 
for  the  former  proposition,  we  need  only  point  to 
the  long  line  of  great  poets  who  have  allied  their 
work  with  the  practical  human  causes  of  reli-' 
gious  and  ethical  teaching,  of  political  and  social 
progress.  From  the  defence  of  the  Areopagus 
and  the  old  conservative  order  by  ^Eschylus  to 
the  denunciation  by  Hugo  of  the  saturnalia  of 
a  bastard  French  imperialism,  the  most  famous 
of  poets  have  ever  been  ready  —  have  found 
themselves  irresistibly  impelled — to  make  their 
work  tell  in  the  never-ending  struggle  between 
truth  and  error,  between  right  and  wrong,  be- 
tween the  conservative  and  the  destructive 
agencies  in  the  life  of  the  social  organism. 

How  does  our  star-like  Milton  serve  to  illu- 
minate the  doctrine  of  l  art  for  art's  sake  '  ?    It  is 


The  Artist  and  the  Man         89 

true  that  he  turned  from  serene  verse  to  stormy 
prose  in  his  championship  of  the  struggling 
Puritan  Commonwealth,  but  it  is  also  true  that 
when  he  turned  again  to  verse  his  thought  took 
on  a  new  majesty,  and  that  the  deepest  feelings 
of  puritanism  are  to  be  found  rather  in  his  epics 
than  in  his  polemics.  Surely,  our  literature  has 
no  nobler  art  than  that  of  the  l  Paradise  Lost,' 
but  was  the  poem  written  for 'art's  sake 'alone? 
Not  unless  we  take  '  art's  sake  '  and  '  life's  sake' 
to  be  synonymous,  which  they  probably  are,  if 
•our  definitions  be  made  sufficiently  liberal.  In 
the  final  synthesis,  beauty  and  truth  and  virtue 
are  one  and  the  same  thing,  and  the  'art's  sake' 
shibboleth  appears  but  a  question-begging  phrase. 
We  cannot  judge  the  artist  without  in  large 
measure  judging  the  man  as  well,  for  as  Pro- 
fessor Corson  says,  speaking  of  such  poets  as 
Milton,  'their  personalities  and  their  works  are 
consubstantial.'  But  we  may  easily  make  the 
mistake  —  and  often  do  make  it  —  of  basing  our 
estimate  of  a  poet's  character  too  much  upon  the 
trivial  outward  aspects  of  his  life,  and  too  little 
upon  the  writings  in  which  his  inmost  self  stands 
clearly  revealed.  If  his  actions  and  his  books 


go  Various  Views 

give  each  other  the  lie,  why  should  we  jump  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  written  expression  of 
character  must  be  insincere ;  why  not  take  the 
more  reasonable  view  that  the  true  personality 
is  to  be  sought  in  the  books  ?  They,  at  least, 
if  read  aright,  offer  a  form  of  self-expression 
that  is  deliberate  and  clear ;  while  a  man's  daily 
actions  are  impulsive  and  open  to  a  hundred 
misinterpretations. 

Again  writing  of  Milton,  Professor  Corson 
says  :  *  His  personality  is  felt  in  his  every  pro- 
duction, poetical  and  prose,  and  felt  almost  as 
much  in  the  earliest  as  in  the  latest  period  of  his 
authorship.  And  there  is  no  epithet  more  ap- 
plicable to  his  own  personality  than  the  epithet 
august.  He  is  therefore  one  of  the  most  edu- 
cating of  authors,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the 
word,  that  is,  educating  in  the  direction  of  sanc- 
tified character.'  What  is  here  said  of  Milton 
we  believe  to  be  equally  true  of  Shakespeare. 
We  all  know  what  Wordsworth  said  of  the 
sonnet,  that 4  with  this  key  Shakespeare  unlocked 
his  heart,'  how  Browning  replied  to  this  dictum 
with  an  indignant,  l  If  so,  the  less  Shakespeare 


The  Artist  and  the  Man         91 

he,'  and  how  Matthew  Arnold,  in  a  vein  similar 
to  that  of  Browning,  wrote  these  lines  : 

'Others  abide  our  question.      Thou  art  free. 
We  ask  and  ask  —  Thou  smilest  and  art  still, 
Out-topping  knowledge.' 

In  this  conflict  of  opinion,  it  seems  to  us  that 
Wordsworth  has  expressed  the  deeper  truth.  It 
is  true  that  the  closest  scrutiny  of  Shakespeare's 
work  will  not  give  us  the  facts  about  his  boyish 
poaching  upon  Sir  Thomas  Lucy's  preserves,  or 
explain  the  mystery  of  that  'second-best  bed' 
bequeathed  to  his  wife.  But  the  knowledge  of 
a  man's  personality  does  not  depend  upon  such 
trivialities  as  these.  We  know  his  qualities  of 
heart  and  mind  better  than  we  know  those  of 
our  closest  friends.  We  know  what  he  thought 
upon  most  serious  subjects,  and  how  he  felt 
about  human  life  in  its  most  significant  aspects. 
The  superstition  which  would  have  us  believe 
that,  as  a  dramatist,  he  exhibited  the  personali- 
ties of  his  created  characters  and  concealed  his 
own  beyond  any  possibility  of  surmise  has  been 
tenacious,  but  is  at  last  losing  its  hold  upon 
intelligent  students.  The  little  book  of  Mr. 


92  Various  Views 

Frank  Harris  upon  the  man  Shakespeare,  and 
the  still  more  recent  book  of  Professor  Goldwin 
Smith  upon  the  same  subject,  are  interesting 
records  of  the  change  of  opinion  upon  this  sub- 
ject. Still  more  interesting  is  the  closing  para- 
graph of  the  important  work  of  Shakespearian 
criticism  which  we  owe  to  Dr.  Brandes : 

*  The  William  Shakespeare  who  was  born  at  Stratford- 
on-Avon  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  lived  and 
wrote  in  London  in  her  reign  and  that  of  James,  who 
ascended  into  heaven  in  his  comedies  and  descended  into 
hell  in  his  tragedies,  and  died  at  the  age  of  fifty-two  in 
his  native  town,  rises  a  wonderful  personality  in  grand 
and  distinct  outlines,  with  all  the  vivid  coloring  of  life 
from  the  pages  of  his  books,  before  the  eyes  of  all  who 
read  them  with  an  open,  receptive  mind,  with  sanity  of 
judgment,  and  simple  susceptibility  to  the  power  of 
genius.' 


The  Duties  of  Authors          93 


THE  DUTIES  OF  AUTHORS. 

THAT  every  right  implies  a  correlated  duty,  and 
that  the  assertion  of  the  one  should  be  con- 
ditioned upon  the  acceptance  of  the  other,  is  a 
principle  in  which  theoretical  is  more  common 
than  practical  acquiescence.  The  burden  of 
Mazzini's  criticism  of  the  French  Revolution 
was  that  it  gave  undue  prominence  to  the  Rights 
of  A4an,  and  had  little  to  say  about  the  corre- 
sponding Duties  of  Man.  It  was  the  funda- 
mental aim  of  that  patient,  heroic  soul  to  mor- 
alize the  European  revolutionary  movement  by 
insisting  upon  the  claim  of  duty  as  a  necessary 
accompaniment  of  the  claim  of  right. 

Transferring  the  discussion  from  the  political 
to  the  literary  plane,  we  are  inclined  to  think 
that  too  much  has  lately  been  heard  about  the 
rights  of  authors  in  comparison  with  what  is 
said  about  their  duties.  It  is  then  with  peculiar 
satisfaction  that  we  call  attention  to  the  chapter 
on  lThe  Duties  of  Authors'  included  in  Mr. 


94  Various  Views 

Leslie  Stephen's  collection  of  addresses  to  eth- 
ical societies.  While  Sir  Walter  Besant  and  his 
associates  in  the  Society  of  Authors  are  engaged 
in  the  praiseworthy  work  of  exposing  the  wily 
ways  of  the  dishonest  publisher,  it  is  well  that  a 
strong  voice  should  now  and  then  discourse  upon 
the  responsibilities  of  authorship,  and  sound  a  note 
of  warning  against  the  temptations  which  beset 
the  man  of  letters  under  the  modern  commercial 
literary  regime.  The  ethics  of  literature  is  a  large 
subject  with  many  ramifications,  and  neither  Mr. 
Stephen  nor  any  other  man  could  hope  to  treat 
of  it  exhaustively  within  the  limits  of  a  single 
essay ;  but  the  address  to  which  reference  is 
now  made  touches  upon  the  more  salient  fea- 
tures of  the  subject,  and  is  characterized  in 
unusual  measure  by  good  sense,  sound  logic,  and 
fine  ethical  tone. 

So  large  a  proportion  of  literary  energy  now- 
adays is  absorbed  by  journalism  that  no  discus- 
sion of  the  duties  of  authors  can  ignore  the  work 
of  those  who  write  for  the  newspaper  press.  It 
is  in  journalism,  also,  that  writers  are  most 
strongly  assailed  by  the  temptations  peculiar  to 
their  craft.  The  question  of  anonymity,  for 


The  Duties  of  Authors          95 

example,  is  one  that  must  be  considered  in  its 
ethical  relations,  and  it  takes  the  keenest  self- 
searching  for  a  man  to  be  sure  that  under  the 
impersonal  shelter  of  the  plural  pronoun  he  is 
not  saying  things  to  which  he  would  blush  to 
attach  his  signature.  Nothing  is  more  con- 
temptible than  the  work  of  the  writer  who 
makes  himself  a  hireling  of  some  party  organ, 
and  earns  his  daily  bread  by  the  advocacy  of 
doctrines  to  which  he  does  not  personally  sub- 
scribe; doctrines  that  are  abhorrent  to  him  as 
an  individual.  Such  a  prostitution  of  literary 
talent  may  be  defended,  is  defended,  in  many 
ingenious  ways,  but  the  cobwebs  of  sophistry 
woven  about  the  discussion  by  defenders  of  this 
practice  are  easily  swept  away  by  anyone  who  is 
determined  to  see  things  as  they  are  and  regulate 
his  conduct  in  accordance  with  the  fundamental 
principles  of  morality.  The  stock  argument  by 
which  lawyers  justify  their  defence  of  the  crimi- 
nal of  whose  guilt  they  are  convinced  —  the  plea 
that  such  a  person  is  entitled  to  the  most  favor- 
able interpretation  of  which  the  law  admits,  and 
that  someone  must  secure  it  for  him — is  not 
valid  in  the  discussion  of  questions  of  public 


g6  Various  Views 

interest.  No  matter  of  governmental  policy  is 
entitled  to  any  other  defence  than  may  be  made 
for  it  by  those  who  honestly  believe  in  its  advis- 
ability ;  for  those  who  disbelieve  in  it,  yet  enlist 
their  powers  in  its  behalf,  no  condemnation  can 
be  too  strong.  The  first  duty  of  the  citizen  is 
to  further  what  he  honestly  believes  to  be  the 
real  interests  of  the  state,  and,  if  his  activity  take 
the  special  form  of  argument  through  the  medium 
of  the  press,  to  be  sure  that  his  public  utterances 
tally  with  his  private  opinions.  To  repudiate 
this  obligation  is  to  act  the  part  of  traitor,  and 
in  a  more  dangerous,  because  a  more  insidious, 
way  than  that  of  the  leader  of  an  armed  revolt. 
1  To  thine  own  self  be  true '  is  a  precept  that 
journalists,  more  than  most  other  people,  need 
to  keep  in  mind. 

Anonymity  doubtless  serves  as  a  shelter  for 
much  of  the  baseness  that  we  are  reprobating ; 
yet  historically,  Mr.  Stephen  tells  us,  it  is  rather 
the  effect  than  the  cause. 

'  According  to  a  well-known  anecdote,  two  writers 
of  the  eighteenth  century  decided  by  the  toss  of  a  half- 
penny which  should  write  for  Walpole  and  which  should 
write  for  his  adversary  Pulteney  ;  but  the  choice  was 
generally  decided  by  less  reputable  motives.  Now,  so 


The  Duties  of  Authors          97 

long  as  the  press  meant  such  a  class  it  was  of  course 
natural  that  the  trade  should  be  regarded  as  discredit- 
able, and  should  be  carried  on  by  men  who  had  less 
care  for  their  character  than  for  their  pockets.  In  En- 
gland, where  our  development  has  been  continuous  and 
traditions  linger  long,  the  sentiment  long  survived  ;  and 
the  practice  which  corresponded  to  it  —  the  practice, 
that  is,  of  anonymity  —  has  itself  survived  the  sentiment 
which  gave  it  birth. ' 

Mr.  Stephen  then  goes  on  to  say : 

« The  mask  was  formerly  worn  by  men  who  were 
ashamed  of  their  employment,  and  who  had  the  same 
reasons  for  anonymity  as  a  thief  or  an  anarchist  may 
have  for  a  disguise.  It  may  now  be  worn  even  by  men 
who  are  proud  of  their  profession,  because  the  mask  has 
a  different  significance.' 

This  latter  statement  is  to  a  considerable  extent 
true,  but  we  are  far  from  sure  that  the  senti- 
ment is  dead  that  gave  birth  to  anonymity,  or 
that  great  numbers  of  journalists  to-day  do  not 
write  what  they  are  told  to  write,  and  paid  for 
writing,  irrespective  of  their  own  convictions. 

Anonymity  has  other  dangers  than  the  major 
one  of  making  men  false  to  themselves.  It 
affords,  for  example,  c  obvious  conveniences  to 
a  superficial  omniscience.'  Mr.  Stephen  remarks 
with  genial  humor: 

'  The  young  gentleman  who  dogmatizes  so  early  might 


98  Various  Views 

blush  if  he  had  to  sign  his  name  to  his  audacious  utter- 
ances. His  tone  of  infallibility  would  be  absurd  if  we 
knew  who  was  the  pope  that  was  promulgating  dogmas. 
The  man  in  a  mask  professes  to  detect  at  a  glance  the 
absurd  sophistries  which  impose  upon  the  keenest  con- 
temporary intellects  ;  but  if  he  doffed  the  mask  and 
appeared  as  young  Mr.  Smith,  or  Jones,  who  took  his 
degree  last  year,  we  might  doubt  whether  he  had  a 
right  to  assume  so  calmly  that  the  sophistry  is  all  on  the 
other  side.' 

The  one  safe  rule  seems  to  be  that  the  anony- 
mous writer  l  should  say  nothing  when  he  speaks 
in  the  plural  which  would  make  him  look  silly 
if  he  used  the  first  person  singular.'  The  man 
who  should  follow  this  rule,  and  who  should 
refrain  from  allowing  any  personal  feeling  to 
invade  his  judgments  of  other  men  and  their 
works,  might  safely  be  trusted  to  write  unsigned 
articles  by  the  score,  and,  if  he  remained  all  the 
while  true  to  his  convictions,  could  not  fairly  be 
charged  with  falling  short  of  the  whole  duty  of 
authorship. 

Another  temptation  that  besets  the  author 
is  that  of  being  content  to  follow  current  opin- 
ion, instead  of  doing  his  best  to  aid  in  its  forma- 
tion. l  There  is  an  old  story,'  says  Mr.  Stephen, 
4  which  tells  how  a  certain  newspaper  used  to 


The  Duties  of  Authors          99 

send  out  an  emissary  to  discover  what  was  the 
common  remark  that  everyone  was  making  in 
omnibuses  and  club  smoking-rooms,  and  to 
fashion  it  into  next  morning's  article  for  the 
instruction  of  mankind.  The  echo  affected  to  set 
the  tune  which  it  really  repeated.'  One  of  the 
most  obvious  duties  of  authorship  is  that  of  hav- 
ing something  of  your  own  to  say,  and  of  pre- 
paring yourself  by  strenuous  effort  to  say  it  in 
the  most  direct  and  forcible  manner.  There  is 
a  great  deal  more  of  'facile  writing'  than  there 
was  half  a  century  ago,  but  it  is  doubtful  if 
there  is  any  more  writing  of  the  first-rate  sort, 
4  which  speaks  of  a  full  mind  and  strong  convic- 
tions, which  is  clear  because  it  is  thorough.' 
This  phase  of  the  question  of  duty  as  it  relates 
to  authors  could  not  be  better  put  than  in  the 
following  passage: 

'  I  have  been  struck  in  reading  newspaper  articles, 
even  my  own,  by  the  curious  loss  of  individuality  which 
a  man  seems  to  suffer  as  a  writer.  Unconsciously  the 
author  takes  the  color  of  his  organ  ;  he  adopts  not  only 
its  sentiment  but  its  style,  and  seems  to  become  a  mere 
transmitter  of  messages,  with  whose  substance  he  has  no 
more  to  do  than  the  wires  of  the  electric  telegraph  which 
carries  them.  But  now  and  then  we  suddenly  come 
across  something  fresh  and  original  ;  we  know  by  instinct 


ioo  Various  Views 

that  we  are  being  addressed  by  another  man,  and  are  in 
a  living  relation  to  a  separate  human  being,  not  to  a  mere 
drilled  characterless  unit  of  a  disciplined  army  ;  we  find 
actually  thoughts,  convictions,  arguments,  which,  though 
all  arguments  are  old,  have  evidently  struck  the  writer's 
mind,  and  not  merely  been  transmitted  into  his  pen  ; 
and  then  we  may  know  that  we  are  in  the  presence  of  a 
real  force,  and  meeting  with  a  man  who  is  doing  his 
duty.' 

Mr.  Stephen's  exposition  of  his  theme  is  so 
attractive  that  we  are  loath  to  dismiss  with  a  few 
words,  as  must  however,  be  done,  the  remain- 
ing features  of  the  discussion.  There  is  the 
fruitful  subject  of  writing  for  money,  upon  which 
we  read : 

*  I  do  not  doubt  that  authors  ought  to  be  paid  ;  but 
I  certainly  agree  that  a  money  reward  ought  never  to  be 
the  chief  aim  of  their  writing.  And  I  confess  that  some 
utterances  about  copyrights  in  these  days  have  jarred 
upon  me,  because  they  seem  to  imply  that  the  doctrine 
is  not  disavowed  so  unequivocally  as  it  should  be  by  our 
leaders.' 

Then  there  is  the  subject  of  writing  too  much 
to  write  anything  well,  concerning  which  the 
author  discourses  feelingly,  and  of  which  mel- 
ancholy examples  are  about  us  on  every  hand. 
Then  there  is  the  suggestive  disquisition  upon 
literary  preaching,  which  deserves  an  article  by 


The  Duties  of  Authors         101 

itself.  Finally,  there  is  the  deeply  interesting 
discussion  of  duty  as  it  applies  to  the  imaginative 
worker,  the  duty  of  eschewing  false  realism  and 
false  sentimentalism  alike,  of  avoiding  like  the 
plague  the  promptings  of  the  familiar  spirit  that 
confuses  notoriety  with  fame,  and,  pointing  out 
how  easily  the  one  may  be  secured,  deludes  the 
writer  into  thinking  that  it  is  much  the  same 
thing  as  the  other.  All  these  matters  must  be 
passed  over  with  a  word,  and  space  found  only 
for  the  conclusion  that  '  the  enduring  power  of 
every  great  writer  depends  not  merely  on  his 
intellectual  forces,  but  upon  the  charm  of  his 
character —  the  clear  recognition  of  what  it  really 
is  that  makes  life  beautiful  and  desirable,  and  of 
what  are  the  baser  elements  that  fight  against 
the  elevating  forces.' 


102  Various  Views 


TENDENCIES  IN  LITERATURE. 

To  THE  seasoned  critic,  there  are  few  things  so 
amusing  as  the  habit  the  amateur  observer  has 
of  indulging  in  broad  generalizations  concerning 
contemporary  literature.  Some  book  proves  to 
be  the  fashion  of  the  hour,  and  straightway  it  is 
made  the  subject  of  philosophizing.  What  is 
merely  a  ripple  upon  the  surface  of  popular  taste 
is  viewed  as  a  fresh  and  deep  current  of  human 
thought,  and  this  supposedly  new  departure  of 
the  spirit  serves  as  a  starting-point  for  many  a 
solemn  disquisition  upon  types  and  schools  and 
movements.  These  grave  inductions  from  a 
single  instance,  or  a  few  instances,  however 
philosophical  the  parade  of  the  terms  in  which 
they  are  presented,  betray  their  essentially  un- 
philosophical  character  by  the  obvious  inade- 
quacy of  their  basis  of  fact.  They  are  made 
only  to  be  forgotton,  as,  in  the  majority  of  cases, 
the  books  that  occasioned  them  are  forgotten, 
after  the  lapse  of  a  few  years.  It  is  not  so  very 


Tendencies  in  Literature       103 

long  ago  that  the  American  public  was  reading 
and  talking  4  Trilby '  with  such  frantic  enthusi- 
asm that  one  would  have  thought  a  new  literary 
era  had  dawned.  Many  were  the  seeming-wise 
reflections  of  which  this  entertaining  story  was 
the  innocent  provoking  cause,  many  were  the 
hopes,  or  the  fears,  for  our  literary  development 
that  took  their  starting  point  from  the  vogue  of 
this  particular  piece  of  fiction.  All  this  discus- 
sion was  the  work  of  the  amateur,  and  we  now 
realize  how  absurd  it  all  was.  The  novel  in 
question  is  clean  forgotten  to-day,  and  with  it 
the  whole  argument  based  upon  its  success. 
Anyone  can  see  now  what  the  practiced  critic 
saw  all  the  time,  that  there  was  no  more  signifi- 
cance in  the  astonishing  vogue  of4 Trilby'  than 
there  had  been  a  score  of  years  earlier  in  the 
equally  astonishing  vogue  of  l  Helen's  Babies.' 
In  point  of  fact,  when  the  philosophical  stu- 
dent of  literature  confronts  the  question  of  liter- 
ary tendencies,  he  sees  two  things  with  absolute 
distinctness.  One  of  them  is  that  the  study  of 
tendencies,  of  movements,  of  the  transformations 
of  a  nation's  idealisms,  is  the  most  important 
thing  about  the  history  of  any  literature,  the  only 


104  Various  Views 

thing,  indeed,  that  invests  a  literature  with  real 
significance  for  the  history  of  culture.  If  he 
cannot  discern  the  evolutionary  process  at  work, 
he  misses  all  the  salt  and  savor  of  his  subject, 
and  his  conclusions  are  empirical  or  merely  sub- 
jective. The  other  thing  is  that  this  process  of 
development,  this  history  of  movements  and 
transformations,  requires  for  its  proper  obser- 
vation a  considerable  period  to  be  taken  into 
survey,  and  a  considerable  detachment,  in  point 
of  time,  from  that  period.  The  one  well-nigh 
impossible  task  is  to  trace  the  direction  of  the 
evolutionary  process  in  one's  immediate  sur- 
roundings, or  to  make  any  prophecies  for  the 
future  save  those  that  are  the  logical  outcome  of 
some  tendency  that  has  been  in  operation  long 
enough  to  become  clearly  discerned. 

Suppose  one  were  to  take  some  representative 
collection  of  contemporary  literature,  such,  for 
example,  as  the  closing  section  of  either  of  Mr. 
Stedman's  great  anthologies,  and  read  it  through 
intent  only  upon  the  detection  of  tendencies,  or 
of  unifying  principles,  he  would  find  it  an 
extremely  difficult  matter  to  reduce  to  order  his 
confused  and  varied  impressions.  In  such  a  case, 


Tendencies  in  Literature       105 

it  is  impossible  to  see  the  woods  for  the  trees. 
To  discern  the  tendencies  at  work  in  such  a 
mass  of  literary  production,  to  find  the  pattern 
in  so  complex  a  web  of  intellectual  activity,  to 
distinguish  the  currents  from  the  eddies  in  so 
wide  an  expanse  of  waters,  would  be  a  task  well 
worth  attempting,  indeed,  but  one  likely  to 
baffle  the  most  persistent  effort.  Of  course  the 
problem  might  to  a  certain  extent  be  simplified 
by  discarding  the  great  mass  of  the  work  as 
merely  reflecting  the  hues  caught  from  the 
greater  poems,  as  merely  echoing  the  significant 
ideas  of  the  age  put  forth  by  the  few  writers 
who  set  the  pitch  for  the  symphony.  The  lesser 
writers  contribute  to  the  harmony  (or  the  dis- 
cord) and  the  tone-coloring  of  the  composition, 
but  they  do  not  modify  the  fundamental  char- 
acter of  the  movement.  Nevertheless,  the  diffi- 
culty is  not  really  removed  by  this  process  of 
elimination  ;  it  is  somewhat  lessened,  and  that 
is  all. 

A  few  generalizations,  however,  concerning 
the  tendencies  and  characteristics  of  our  contem- 
porary English  literature  it  seems  reasonably  safe 
to  make,  and  one  of  them  is  that  we  are  living 


io6  Various  Views 

in  a  critical  rather  than  a  creative  period.  As 
the  few  great  survivors  of  the  earlier  age  one  by 
one  pass  away,  we  feel  acutely  conscious  that 
the  places  are  left  unfilled.  The  season  of 
analysis  and  introspection  is  clearly  upon  us.  In 
such  a  period  as  ours,  versatility,  good  taste,  and 
excellent  workmanship  abound,  and  the  number 
of  good  writers,  as  distinguished  from  the  great 
masters,  is  astonishingly  large.  Sometimes  they 
spring  up  in  the  most  unexpected  quarters,  and 
anticipation  flutters  at  the  thought  of  a  possible 
resurgence  of  the  creative  impulse.  But  we  must 
not  deceive  ourselves  into  thinking  that  our  bust- 
ling literary  activity  is  swelling  to  any  appreci- 
able or  noticeable  extent  the  stock  of  the  world's 
masterpieces.  Our  literature  of  to-day  is  vari- 
ous and  entertaining,  it  has  taste  and  even  dis- 
tinction, but  it  is  not  a  literature  adorned  by  the 
opulent  blossoming  of  genius. 

If  we  may  venture,  after  the  preceding  dis- 
claimer, to  indicate  any  distinct  tendencies  in  the 
English  and  American  literature  of  the  past  few 
years,  we  would  say  that  it  has  moved,  and  is 
still  moving,  in  the  direction  of  artistic  freedom, 
of  cosmopolitan  interest,  and  of  broadened  social 


Tendencies  in  Literature       107 

sympathy.  It  no  longer  suffers,  for  example, 
under  the  reproach  of  being  produced  with  an 
exaggerated  deference  to  the  Young  Person. 
To  place  under  the  ban  whole  tracts  of  human 
life,  to  refrain  from  dealing  with  whole  groups  of 
the  most  important  of  human  relations  because 
their  treatment  gives  offense  to  immature  minds, 
is  a  procedure  not  justified  by  the  larger  view  of 
what  literature  means.  This  lesson  we  have 
learned  of  recent  years.  If  we  take  into  ac- 
count the  newest  of  new  women  and  the  young- 
est of  emancipated  young  men,  it  may  seem  that 
the  lesson  has  been  too  well  learned,  but,  on  the 
whole,  out  literary  art  has  gained  strength  with 
its  newly  acquired  freedom.  Our  literature  is 
also  measurably  freed  from  its  old-time  provin- 
cialism of  outlook.  We  have  seen  established 
for  the  mintage  of  the  mind  a  broader  compact 
than  any  Latin  Union;  if  an  idea  have  but  intrin- 
sic value,  its  currency  does  not  now  need  to  be 
forced  in  other  countries  than  that  of  its  origin. 
This,  too,  is  a  great  gain,  and  will  make  the  next 
creative  period  all  the  easier  of  approach.  But 
the  greatest  gain  of  all,  to  our  thinking,  is  the 
awakening  of  the  new  social  sympathy  that  char- 


io8  Various  Views 

acterizes  our  recent  literature.  We  hear  a  good 
deal  of 'democratic  art,'  and  much  of  what  we 
have  thus  far  got  is  distressingly  crude  and  dull 
with  didacticism.  But  the  future  of  our  race 
belongs  to  democracy,  and  literature  must  make 
the  best  of  this  inevitable  movement.  That  it 
will  eventually  learn  how  to  shape  the  idealism 
of  democracy  into  forms  of  convincing  beauty 
we  make  no  doubt,  and  the  signs  are  not  want- 
ing that  such  an  issue  is  near  at  hand.  An  illus- 
tration of  resounding  significance  may  be  found 
in  the  work  of  the  greatest  of  living  Russians. 
The  writings  of  Count  Tolstoy,  or  to  be  more 
exact,  the  earnest  attention  which  they  have 
received  during  the  past  few  years,  offer  an  impres- 
sive example  of  the  power  of  the  social  motive, 
as  embodied  in  the  forms  of  Active  art,  to  make 
itself  felt  as  a  force  in  literature.  Here  is  a 
writer  whose  whole  genius  is  spent  in  an  impas- 
sioned appeal  to  purely  democratic  sympathies, 
and,  as  the  years  go  on,  his  figure  assumes 
grander  and  grander  proportions,  and  his  utter- 
ance seems  to  become  more  and  more  invested 
with  the  attributes  of  prophecy. 


Energy  and  Art  109 


ENERGY  AND  ART. 

MR.  SWINBURNE  speaks  somewhere  of  the  dis- 
tinction, which  yet  amounts  to  'no  mutually 
exclusive  division,'  between  the  gods  and  the 
giants  of  literature.  Practically  the  same  dis- 
tinction is  made  by  his  friend,  Mr.  Theodore 
Watts-Dunton,  in  the  statement,  which  recurs 
frequently  in  the  writings  of  the  latter  critic,  to 
the  effect  that  poetic  energy  and  poetic  art  are 
'the  two  forces  that  move  in  the  production 
of  all  poetry.'  The  distinction  is  illuminating 
for  the  understanding  of  poetry,  for  these  two 
forces  are  the  fundamental  elements  of  the  effec- 
tive appeal  of  literature,  as,  indeed,  of  all  the 
forms  of  artistic  endeavor.  In  the  greatest  of 
poets,  to  be  sure,  we  find  the  two  forces  to 
coexist  in  such  supreme  degree  and  perfect  bal- 
ance that  they  become,  as  it  were,  merely  the 
two  aspects  of  the  phenomenon  which  we  call 
genius,  and  we  understand  that  for  the  highest 
achievements  of  literature  the  one  is  but  the 


no  Various  Views 

necessary  complement  of  the  other.  This  is 
what  we  find  in  Shakespeare  and  Dante  and 
Pindar,  possibly  also  in  Goethe  and  Milton. 
But  when  we  view  the  work  of  the  poets  who 
just  escape  inclusion  in  the  small  company  of 
the  supreme  singers  of  the  world,  we  nearly 
always  discover  some  preponderance  of  energy 
over  art  or  of  art  over  energy.  As  coming 
under  the  latter  category,  for  example,  we  think 
of  Sophocles  and  Virgil  and  Tennyson ;  while 
the  former  category  embraces  ./Eschylus ,  and 
Lucretius  and  Victor  Hugo.  Taking  a  step  still 
further  away  from  the  great  masters,  we  meet 
with  such  fairly  antipodal  contrasts  as  are 
offered  by  Horace  and  Juvenal,  by  Spenser 
and  Jonson,  or  by  Keats  and  Byron.  In  these 
cases  we  have  either  art  so  finished  that  the 
energy  has  become  potential,  or  energy  so  unre- 
strained that  the  art  has  been  well-nigh  ignored. 
This  thought  may  profitably  be  pursued  into 
the  domain  of  prose  literature,  and  even,  as  was 
above  suggested,  into  the  field  of  the  fine  arts  in 
general.  The  noblest  prose — that  of  Plato,  for 
example — has  the  same  balance  of  energy  and 
art  that  is  displayed  by  tbe  noblest  poetry.  On 


Energy  and  Art  in 

the  other  hand,  we  have  tremendous  energy  with 
but  scant  art  in  such  a  writer  as  Carlyle,  well- 
nigh  perfect  art  with  but  little  energy  in  such  a 
writer  as  Landor.  In  architecture,  the  Gothic 
style  astonishes  us  with  its  energy,  the  classic 
style  entrances  us  with  its  art.  In  sculpture,  the 
one  type  is  represented  by  Michel  Angelo,  the 
other  by  Thorwaldsen.  In  painting,  the  pre- 
dominance of  energy  in  Tintoretto  is  as  unques- 
tionable as  the  predominance  of  art  in  Raphael. 
And  in  music,  while  Bach  and  Beethoven  stand 
for  the  Shakespearian  harmony  of  both  forces  in 
their  highest  development,  we  may  easily  discern 
the  overplus  of  energy  in  Liszt  and  Tschaikow- 
sky,  of  art  in  Gluck  and  Mozart.  The  broad 
distinction  between  the  classic  and  the  romantic 
styles,  which  runs  through  all  the  arts,  is,  more- 
over, to  a  considerable  extent,  the  distinction 
between  these  two  primary  forces  under  other 
names. 

In  a  recent  number  of  *  The  Athenaeum ' 
there  are  some  interesting  remarks  upon  this 
subject  as  it  is  related  to  literary  criticism, 
remarks  in  which  it  would  be  an  affectation 
to  pretend  not  to  recognize  the  hand  of  Mr. 


ii2  Various  Views 

\Vatts-Dunton.  4It  would  be  unseemlv  here  to 
criticize  contemporary  criticism,  but  it  may, 
without  intending  offense,  be  said  that  while  the 
appreciation  of  poetry  as  an  energy  is  as  strong 
as  ever  in  the  criticism  of  the  present  day,  the 
appreciation  of  poetry  as  an  art  is  non-existent, 
except  in  one  or  two  quarters  which  we  need 
not  indicate.  .  .  .  To  go  no  further  back  than 
the  time  when  Rossetti's  poems  were  published, 
compare  the  critical  canons  then  in  vogue  with 
the'  critical  canons  of  the  present  day.  On 
account  of  a  single  cockney  rhyme,  the  critics 
of  that  period  would  damn  a  set  of  verses  in 
which  perhaps  a  measure  of  poetic  energy  was 
not  wanting.  The  critics  of  to-day  fall  for  the 
most  part  into  two  classes :  those  who  do  not 
know  what  is  meant  by  a  cockney  rhyme,  and 
those  who  love  a  cockney  rhyme.'  If  this  is 
true,  it  is  a  serious  matter,  for  we  are  not  con- 
tent to  share  the  non-committal  position  of  the 
writer,  who  confines  himself  to  saying:  4We 
merely  record  an  interesting  and  suggestive  fact 
of  literary  history.  If  in  poetical  criticism  the 
wisdom  of  one  generation  is  the  folly  of  the 
next,  it  is  the  same  in  everything  man  says  and 


Energy  and  Art  113 

in  everything  he  does,  so  whimsical  a  creature 
has  the  arch-humorist  Nature  set  at  the  top  of 
the  animal  kingdom/ 

For  our  part,  we  believe  that  the  appreciation 
of  poetry  as  an  art  is  essential  to  the  very  exist- 
ence of  criticism,  and  are  far  from  willing  to 
admit  that  it  is  non-existent  at  the  present  day. 
It  is  true  enough  that  a  great  deal  of  verbiage 
about  poetry  issues  from  the  c  blind  mouths '  of 
self-constituted  critics  who  know  not  whereof 
they  speak ;  but  that  has  always  been  the  case. 
Our  writer  himself  makes  the  saving  admission 
that  the  art  of  poetry  still  finds  appreciation  c  in 
one  or  two  quarters  which  we  need  not  indicate,' 
and  that  is  probably  all  that  might  be  said  of  the 
criticism  of  Rossetti's  time,  or  of  a  still  earlier 
generation.  When  we  are  well  along  into  the 
twentieth  century,  it  is  precisely  the  criticism 
from  these  unindicated  quarters  that  will  alone 
survive,  and  will  urge  the  writers  of  that  period 
in  turn  to  say  things  about  the  decay  of  criticism 
in  their  own  time.  The  ineptitudes  of  the  criti- 
cism that  greeted  the  early  work  of  Keats  and 
Shelley,  of  \Vordsworth  and  Tennyson,  were 
surely  as  unfortunate  as  any  utterances  of  the 

8 


ii4  Various  Views 

present  day,  and,  what  is  particularly  to  the 
point,  they  were  lacking  in  precisely  that  appre- 
ciation of  poetry  as  art  for  which  Mr.  Watts- 
Dunton  seeks  almost  in  vain  in  our  current  crit- 
ical literature. 

Having  entered  this  protest  against  a  state- 
ment that  seems  altogether  too  sweeping,  we 
are  now  prepared  to  admit  that  a  good  many 
present-day  facts  lend  countenance  to  the  con- 
tention. Popular  opinion  naturally  cares  more 
for  energy  than  for  art  in  literature,  for  the 
obvious  reason  that  it  is  stirred  by  the  one  and 
not  easily  susceptible  to  the  appeal  of  the  other. 
It  feels  the  power  of  Browning,  for  example, 
and,  although  by  long  familiarity  made  dimly 
conscious  of  the  exquisite  art  of  Tennyson,  is 
disposed  to  allow  the  one  quality  to  offset  the 
other,  and  consider  the  two  as  equally  great 
poets.  It  is  the  same  rough-and-ready  sort  of 
judgment  that  for  a  long  time  held  Byron  to  be  a 
greater  poet  than  Wordsworth,  that  in  our  own 
time  thinks  of  Tolstoi  as  a  greater  master  of 
fiction  than  Tourguenieff,  or  that  made  Juvenal 
seem  a  greater  poet  than  Virgil  to  the  individual 
idiosyncrasy  of  Hugo,  or  Wordsworth  and  even 


Energy  and  Art  115 

Byron  greater  poets  than  Shelley  to  the  individ- 
ual idiosyncrasy  of  Matthew  Arnold.  It  is  the 
sort  of  judgment  that  reaches  the  culmination 
of  extravagance  in  the  things  that  are  sometimes 
said  about  Walt  Whitman  by  the  injudicious 
among  his  admirers.  When  we  consider  that 
Whitman's  verses  are  not  even  what  the  worst 
of  Browning's  are  — c  verses  from  the  typo- 
graphical point  of  view'  —  we  may  realize  to 
what  an  extent  criticism  gone  mad  is  capable  of 
ignoring  poetic  art  and  resting  its  case  upon 
poetic  energy  alone. 

The  reference  to  Arnold  suggests  reflections 
of  a  deeper  sort.  That  the  writer  who  was  on 
the  whole  the  truest  and  finest  English  critic  of 
our  generation  occasionally  went  wrong,  is  well 
enough  understood ;  and  it  is  generally  admitted 
that  his  dicta  about  Shelley  constitute  the  most 
wrong-headed  of  all  his  utterances.  Now  the 
substance  of  his  criticism  was  that  Shelley's 
poetry  is  4  beautiful  but  ineffectual '  —  the  pas- 
sage is  too  familiar  to  need  quotation  in  full, — 
and  the  implication  clearly  is  that  it  is  more 
important  for  poetry  to  be  effectual  —  charged 
with  energy,  that  is  —  than  beautiful.  This  is 


n6  Various  Views 

mainly  interesting  as  going  to  show  how  a  critic 
of  the  best  type  may  be  deluded  by  a  formula, 
since  this  condemnation  of  poetry  for  being  inef- 
fectual is  merely  an  application  of  the  4  criticism 
of  life '  formula  which  gave  a  doctrinaire  tinge 
to  so  much  of  Arnold's  writing.  We  do  not  for 
a  moment  admit  that  Shelley's  poetry  is  inef- 
fectual—  we  have  known  too  many  young  and 
generous  souls  to  be  moved  by  it  as  by  a  trumpet 
call  —  but  we  understand  that  its  energy  is  so 
bound  up  with  the  loveliness  of  its  art  that  the 
critic  who  is  looking  chiefly  for  the  bearings  of 
poetry  upon  conduct  might  easily  be  led  —  as 
Arnold  was — to  underestimate  the  energy  in 
the  presence  of  so  dazzling  an  art.  All  of  which 
goes  simply  to  show  that  the  critic  who  is  bent 
upon  finding  the  effectual  in  poetry  may  miss  it 
for  the  very  reason  of  an  unworthy  distrust  in 
the  beautiful.  4  Beauty  is  truth,'  but  this  does 
not  mean  that  the  truth  need  stick  out  at  all 
sorts  of  angles  from  the  beautiful  structure. 

On  the  whole,  while  there  are  some  signs 
that  energy  gets  more  attention  than  art  from 
critics  nowadays,  and  while  popular  judgments 


Energy  and  Art  117 

are  based,  as  was  always  the  case,  upon  little 
save  energy  in  poetry,  we  are  inclined  to  say 
that  the  only  criticism  that  counts  seriously  does 
not  notably  disregard  the  claims  of  art.  There 
are  still  men  like  Mr.  Watts-Dunton  and  Mr. 
Stedman  and  M.  Brunetiere  to  expound  poetry 
to  an  incredulous  public,  and  we  do  not  recall 
that  earlier  periods  have  been  much  better 
served.  And  the  same  incredulous  public  re- 
mains, as  it  always  did  remain,  mostly  imper- 
vious to  the  doctrine  of  the  critic,  and  continues 
to  worship  its  false  gods  —  occasionally  blunder- 
ing into  worship  of  a  true  one,  —  comfortably 
thinks  that  it  is  enjoying  poetry  when  it  is  only 
dazzled  by  rhetorical  fireworks  or  dazed  by 
sledge-hammer  blows  upon  the  brain,  and  gets 
a  great  deal  of  philistine  satisfaction  out  of  life 
generally,  and  regards  critics  as  daft  persons  of 
most  unaccountable  tastes.  And  the  beautiful 
remains  the  beautiful  in  all  ages,  its  laws  immu- 
table and  its  strength  sure,  while  some  there  be 
who  find  it  out,  and,  not  content  to  know  it  for 
their  own  enjoyment  alone,  bid  others  to  the 
feast  and  help  them  to  understand  how,  although 


n8  Various  Views 

poetic  energy  by  itself  may  accomplish  much, 
conjoined  with  poetic  art  it  may  accomplish 
more,  and  that  the  abiding  power  of  literature 
resides  in  its  form  more  than  in  its  force,  or 
rather  that  the  form  alone  can  preserve  the  force 
from  becoming  spent  in  the  hour  of  its  birth. 


Architecture  of  the  Mind      119 


THE  ARCHITECTURE  OF  THE 
MIND. 

IN  the  history  of  architecture  there  have  been 
two  predominant  types,  the  Greek  and  the 
Gothic.  Each  of  them  has  undergone  historical 
modifications,  in  accordance  with  the  changing 
needs  of  mankind,  but  each  has  nevertheless 
remained  true  to  its  fundamental  ideal.  In  the 
case  of  Greek  architecture,  that  ideal  has  com- 
prised unity  of  design,  symmetry  of  construction, 
and  simple  definite  relations  between  the  several 
parts.  In  the  case  of  Gothic  architecture,  it  has 
meant  more  attention  to  detail  than  to  the  gen- 
eral plan,  a  disregard  of  severely  proportioned 
lines,  and  a  certain  degree  of  confusion  of  aim. 
The  difference  between  the  Parthenon  and  'the 
Bible  of  Amiens,'  for  example,  illustrates  a  fun- 
damental divergence  of  method  and  of  aspira- 
tion j  the  two  ideal  types  are  here  exhibited  in 
the  strongest  of  possible  contrasts. 

Transferring  now  our  attention  from  the  sin- 


120  Various  Views 

gle  field  of  architecture  to  the  broader  domain 
of  art  in  general,  we  find  the  same  contrast  of 
type  exhibited  wherever  we  look,  although  we 
broaden  our  terms  to  correspond  with  the  wider 
view,  and  now  say  classical  and  romantic,  in- 
stead of  simply  saying  Greek  and  Gothic.  The 
Parthenon  is  classical  art,  but  so  also  are  the 
4  Antigone'  and  the  Hermes  of  Olympia  and 
the  Pompeian  frescoes.  So  also  are  the  fugues 
of  Bach  and  the  canvases  of  David,  and  the 
4  Hellenics '  of  Landor.  On  the  other  hand, 
Amiens  cathedral  is  romantic  art,  but  so  also  are 
the  sculptures  of  Michelangelo  and  the  plays  of 
Shakespeare  and  the  paintings  of  Rossetti.  In 
some  sense  even,  as  a  foreshadowing  of  the 
romanticism  of  the  modern  Christian  world,  the 
measures  of  Pindar  and  of  Virgil  escape  from 
the  restraints  of  the  classical  spirit,  and  take  the 
freer  range  which  we  attribute  primarily  to  the 
form  of  art  which  it  was  the  province  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  the  Renaissance  to  develop  in 
all  its  fulness  of  creative  splendor. 

It  does  not  seem  to  us  an  altogether  fanciful 
analogy  to  find  in  the  domain  of  the  intellectual 


Architecture  of  the  Mind      121 

life,  as  distinguished  from  the  creative,  a  similar 
divergence  of  fundamental  types.  We  find  the 
intellect  whose  characteristics  are  unity  and 
symmetry  and  definite  relationship  of  activities ; 
and  we  find  the  intellect  with  whose  character- 
istics these  are  strongly  contrasted,  to  which 
they  are  often  diametrically  opposed.  In  the 
first  category  we  have  the  makers  of  systems, 
the  men  whose  works  exhibit  an  architectonic 
character  so  evident  that  our  attention  is  directed 
to  the  coherent  whole  rather  than  to  the  separate 
details.  That  is,  each  detail,  however  significant 
in  itself,  becomes  much  more  significant  when 
considered  in  relation  to  the  entire  logical  struc- 
ture. Such  an  intellect  keeps  itself  well  in 
hand,  restrains  the  tendency  to  capricious  ex- 
pression, is  firmly  based  upon  certain  funda- 
mental ideas,  and  brings  every  vagrant  fancy 
wherewith  it  is  beset  to  the  primary  test  of  this 
essential  conformity.  We  recognize  this  type 
of  mind  in  Euclid,  in  Aquinas,  in  Spinoza,  in 
Kant,  and  in  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  In  each 
individual  case,  we  realize  that  the  work  must 
stand  or  fall  as  a  whole,  that,  given  a  logical 


122  Various  Views 

method  of  procedure,  it  will  stand  if  the  founda- 
tions are  sound,  and  that  if  they  are  shaky  the 
entire  structure  must  totter  to  its  fall. 

In  the  second  of  our  categories  we  find  those 
discursive  intellects  that  are  content  to  exhibit  the 
separate  facets  of  truth  as  it  is  revealed  to  them, 
that  take  sufficient  satisfaction  in  its  sparkling 
gleam,  and  make  no  effort  to  bring  the  light  to  a 
single  focus.  They  feel  instinctively  that  truth 
as  a  whole  must  be  self-consistent,  and  leave  to 
more  sympathetic  minds  the  task  of  reconciling 
seeming  contradictions  and  of  elucidating  what- 
ever appears  paradoxical.  Such  minds,  when 
actively  at  work,  live  intensely  in  the  present 
moment,  leaving  the  past  and  the  future  to  care 
for  themselves,  and  giving  slight  heed  to  the 
accusation  of  inconsistency.  To  this  intel- 
lectual type  we  accredit  Cicero  (the  epistolary 
and  philosophical  Cicero),  Montaigne,  Samuel 
Johnson  (with  all  his  crabbed  prejudices),  Vol- 
taire, Hume,  Ruskin,  and  Emerson.  Probably 
the  traditional  classification  which  makes  of  all 
men  by  nature  either  Aristotelians  or  Platonists 
is  not  very  different  from  that  which  we  have 
here  sought  to  indicate. 


Architecture  of  the  Mind      123 

Each  of  these  contrasted  modes  of  the  intel- 
lectual life  has  its  own  particular  attendant  dan- 
gers, and  each  needs  the  corrective  influence  of 
the  other.  In  the  former  case,  there  is  always 
the  danger  of  doctrinaireism,  of  twisting  the  truth 
to  fit  the  preconceived  scheme,  of  seeking  to 
demand  acceptance  by  the  sheer  force  of  logical 
coherency.  Reverting  to  our  architectural  figure, 
there  is  always  the  danger  of  magnifying  the 
importance  of  the  structure  qua  structure,  and  of 
the  consequent  failure  to  adapt  it  to  human  needs. 
In  the  latter  case,  there  is  always  the  danger  of 
encouraging  a  lax  mental  habit,  of  holding  the 
requirements  of  logic  too  cheap,  of  allowing  the 
impulse  or  the  emotion  of  the  moment  to  usurp 
the  sway  of  the  sovereign  reason.  The  resulting 
structure  is  apt  to  be  comparable  to  one  of  these 
composite  buildings  in  which  the  eye  is  engaged 
by  many  fascinating  details,  but  in  which  it  can 
take  no  satisfaction  as  a  whole. 

The  natural  bent  of  each  individual  who 
leads  the  intellectual  life  in  any  sort  will  fix  the 
essential  type  to  be  aimed  at.  Each  type  has  its 
peculiar  satisfactions  no  less  than  its  peculiar 
dangers.  There  are  some  who  can  conceive  of 


124  Various  Views 

no  other  ambition  than  that  which  seeks  to 
make  life  of  one  piece,  to  shape  its  intellectual 
activities  into  a  consistent  whole.  Every  new 
idea  must  be  brought  to  the  test  of  those  already 
accepted,  must  be  examined  and  reexamined  in 
the  light  of  the  principles  that  have  been  adopted 
as  fundamentally  important.  This  attitude  to- 
ward truth  is  maintained  at  the  cost  of  much 
strenuous  endeavor,  the  severe  repression  of 
many  a  natural  impulse,  and  the  stern  rejection 
of  many  a  pleasing  fancy.  Viewed  in  retro- 
spect, the  reward  seems  sufficient ;  but  it  is  hard 
to  keep  the  chords  of  the  mind  strung  to  the 
requisite  pitch,  and  the  temptation  at  times  be- 
comes great  to  break  loose  from  the  stiffening 
bonds  of  prescription,  and  give  unimpeded  play 
to  the  faculties.  Minds  of  the  other  type — and 
this  is  no  doubt  the  prevailing  one  —  are  consid- 
erably freer  in  their  activities,  and  thereby  more 
receptive  of  new  impressions.  The  hobgoblin 
inconsistency  has  no  terrors  for  them ;  they  are 
prepared  at  any  time  to  take  a  new  intellectual 
start,  to  ignore  past  conclusions,  and  to  formu- 
late fresh  ones  in  accordance  with  the  new  light 


Architecture  of  the  Mind      125 

in  which  some  truth  seems  to  stand  revealed. 
The  pure  reason  is  no  longer  the  sole  dictator  of 
thought,  but  shares  its  empire  in  some  measure 
with  the  forces  that  control  the  emotional  life. 
This, attitude  finds  its  satisfactions  in  the  intense 
realizations  of  the  moment  which  it  permits,  in 
the  part  which  it  allows  to  the  sense  of  wonder, 
and  in  the  ever-alluring  prospect  of  coming  upon 
new  gateways  of  truth.  To  declare  for  one  or 
the  other  of  these  attitudes  is  probably  futile; 
each  thinking  mind  finds  its  choice  already  made 
by  the  time  the  instinctive  and  unconscious  period 
of  thought  is  past.  And  whether  the  philosophy 
of  conduct  be  built  up  by  the  logical  method  of  a 
Spinoza  or  by  the  haphazard  method  of  a  Mon- 
taigne, the  practical  outcome  is  apt  to  be  much 
the  same  with  minds  of  normal  endowment. 

We  have  discussed  these  contrasting  mental 
attitudes  with  reference  to  the  individuals  whom 
they  primarily  concern;  let  us  in  conclusion  dis- 
cuss them  with  reference  to  their  influence  upon 
the  stream  of  human  thought.  In  the  long  run, 
do  the  systematic  thinkers  determine  the  intel- 
lectual currents  of  history,  leaving  only  its  eddies 


126  Various  Views 

and  surface-ripples  to  be  shaped  by  the  discur- 
sive thinkers  ?  Our  first  thought  is  that  they  do. 
When  we  think  of  the  immense  authority,  ex- 
ercised for  century  after  century,  of  an  Aristotle 
or  an  Aquinas,  it  seems  as  if  such  were  the  only 
intellectual  forces  that  have  counted.  But  a  lit- 
tle reflection  will  bring  the  counter-opinion  into 
view,  and  make  us  doubt  our  hasty  initial  assump- 
tion. Systems  have  their  day  and  become  stripped 
of  their  authority,  whereas  no  sincere  expression 
of  the  human  spirit,  struck  out  in  the  glow  of 
some  moment  of  intense  vision,  ever  wholly  loses 
its  validity.  This  is  why  the  poets,  on  the  whole, 
have  influenced  the  thoughts  of  men  more  than 
the  philosophers.  We  may  take  leave  to  doubt 
whether  the  c  Summa  Theologicae '  has,  all  things 
considered,  proved  so  potent  and  penetrating  an 
influence  upon  religious  thought  as  the  lDe  Imi- 
tatione  Christi,'  and  we  may  confidently  assert 
that,  in  the  total  reckoning,  philosophical  thought 
owes  a  greater  debt  to  Plato  than  it  does  to 
Aristotle.  The  influence  of  the  unsystematic 
writers  is  less  imposing,  but  it  seems  to  be  farther- 
reaching  than  that  of  the  architectonic  thinkers. 


Architecture  of  the  Mind      127 

It  is,  after  all,  the  open  mind  that  makes  possible 
all  intellectual  progress,  and  the  mind  of  the 
systematic  philosopher  has  too  often  but  a  single 
outlook,  which  may  be  in  the  wrong  direction, 
turned  toward  the  fading  past  rather  than  toward 
the  glowing  future  of  human  thought. 


128  Various  Views 


IDIOM  AND  IDEAL. 

ELIZABETH  BARRETT,  in  one  of  her  letters  to 
Robert  Browning,  asks  him  whether  he  con- 
siders lthe  sailor-idiom  to  be  lawful  in  poetry/ 
adding  that,  for  her  part,  she  does  not.  The 
reply  runs  as  follows  :  l  The  Sailor  Language  is 
good  in  its  way ;  but  as  wrongly  used  in  Art 
as  real  clay  and  mud  would  be,  if  one  plastered 
them  in  the  foreground  of  a  landscape  in  order 
to  attain  to  so  much  truth.'  To  all  of  this  Miss 
Barrett  assents,  remarking  further  that 4  art  with- 
out an  ideal  is  neither  nature  nor  art.  The 
question  involves  the  whole  difference  between 
Madame  Tussaud  and  Phidias.' 

The  question  of  aesthetics  thus  raised  is  one 
of  peculiar  interest  to  the  present  period,  and 
has  become  far  more  burning  than  it  could  have 
been  when  the  above  correspondence  was  ex- 
changed. There  are  few  features  of  the  recent 
literary  situation  as  noteworthy  as  the  large 
production  and  wide  vogue  of  writings  which 


Idiom  and  Ideal  129 

exploit  some  special  form  of  idiom  and  rely  for 
their  main  interest  upon  the  appeal  to  curiosity 
thus  made.  The  idiom  of  the  sailor  and  the 
soldier,  the  rustic  and  the  mechanic,  have  el- 
bowed their  way  into  literature,  and  demand 
their  share  of  the  attention  hitherto  accorded 
chiefly  to  educated  speech.  The  normal  type 
of  English  expression  has  to  jostle  for  recognition 
with  the  local  and  abnormal  types  of  the  Scotch- 
man and  the  Irishman,  the  negro  and  the  baboo, 
and,  in  our  own  country  particularly,  with  such 
uncouth  mixtures  as  those  of  the  German- 
American  and  Scandinavian-American.  Exam- 
ples lie  upon  every  hand.  We  think  at  once 
of  the  c  kailyard  '  group  of  story-tellers,  of  c  Mr. 
Dooley '  and  Mr.  Seumas  McManus,  of  Mr. 
J.  W.  Riley  and  'Charles  Egbert  Craddock,' 
and,  foremost  among  all  these  phenomena,  of 
the  writings  of  Mr.  Kipling. 

An  observer  who  looks  beyond  the  momen- 
tary caprices  of  literary  fashion  is  compelled  to 
ask,  in  the  contemplation  of  so  great  a  volume 
of  dialect  and  specialized  jargon,  whether  this 
sort  of  work  can  claim  to  be  literature  in  any 
high  sense  of  the  term.  Does  the  speech  of 


iso  Various  Views 

Tommy  Atkins  and  Marse  Chan,  the  dialect  of 
Drumtochty  and  Donegal,  the  locution  of  the 
Hoosier  farmer  and  the  Bowery  tough,  have 
anything  of  the  antiseptic  quality  that  preserves 
a  story  or  a  poem  and  enables  it  to  delight  suc- 
cessive generations  of  readers.  The  history  of 
our  literature  is  fairly  instructive  upon  this  point. 
With  few  exceptions,  the  writings  of  the  past 
that  have  relied  mainly  upon  their  use  of  an 
abnormal  idiom  have  passed  completely  out  of 
the  memory  of  men.  It  is  true  that  such  a  novel 
as  'The  Antiquary  '  and  such  a  poem  as  'The 
Northern  Farmer '  have  assured  places  among 
the  works  that  live,  but  how  easy  it  is  to  see  that 
their  idiom  is  merely  an  accident  of  their  pro- 
duction, and  not  the  determining  motive.  They 
survive  in  spite  of  their  departure  from  accepted 
modes  of  expression,  and  not  in  consequence 
thereof.  But  nine -tenths  of  our  latter-day 
jargon-mongers  have  for  their  whole  stock-in- 
trade  some  grotesque  form  of  English  speech  ; 
strip  them  of  this,  and  the  revelation  of  their 
poverty  would  be  indeed  pitiful.  They  offer 
novelty,  and  they  amuse  for  an  hour  the  novelty- 
seeking  section  of  the  public.  A  little  later, 


Idiom  and  Ideal  131 

their  books  collect  dust  upon  the  library  shelves, 
and  the  counter  of  the  dry-goods  store  sees  them 
no  more. 

The  case  of  Mr.  Kipling  offers  so  typical  an 
illustration  of  the  proposition  with  which  we  are 
now  concerned  that  it  deserves  close  examina- 
tion. We  should  be  the  last  to  deny  the  noble 
qualities  of  Mr.  Kipling's  art  in  its  finer  mani- 
festations. While  it  almost  never  gives  evidence 
of  that  labor  llmce  of  which  the  really  great  mas- 
ters are  so  lavish,  its  prlmesautier  quality,  its 
downright  energy  and  superb  emotional  appeal, 
compel  our  admiration,  and  almost  make  us  wish 
that  the  praise  bestowed  might  be  ungrudging. 
If  we  judge  Mr.  Kipling  by  his  good  work  alone, 
as  every  poet  has  a  right  to  be  judged,  he  must 
be  given  a  place  among  the  dozen  or  so  of  living 
English  singers  who  approach  most  closely  the 
height  now  occupied  in  solitary  eminence  by 
Mr.  Swinburne.  As  a  writer  of  prose  narrative 
he  has  taken  a  lesson  from  Bret  Harte,  and 
bettered  the  instruction.  He  is  not  one  of  the 
great  novelists,  but  the  best  of  his  stories  have  a 
fair  chance  of  being  read  well  along  in  the  twen- 
tieth century.  So  much,  and  possibly  more, 


132  Various  Views 

must  be  accorded  him  by  every  sober-minded 
critic. 

But  between  this  measured  and  deserved  praise 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  wild  acclaim  of  Mr. 
Kipling's  present  vogue  on  the  other,  there  is  a 
great  gulf  fixed.  And  when  we  come  to  inquire 
into  the  causes  of  the  vogue,  we  find  that  it  has 
little  to  do  with  his  best  work.  It  is  the  l  Danny 
Deever '  sort  of  poem,  and  not l  The  English 
Flag '  sort  of  poem,  which  nine  out  of  ten  of 
his  vociferous  admirers  have  in  mind  when  they 
proclaim  him  a  poet  after  their  own  heart ;  and  it 
is  the  Mulvaney  sort  of  story,  rather  than  4  The 
Finest  Story  in  the  World,'  that  they  are  really 
thinking  of  when  they  assert  that  he  is  first 
and  the  rest  nowhere  among  story-tellers.  A 
vogue  that  is  based  upon  such  judgments  as 
these  has  a  precarious  vitality,  and  the  reasons 
for  which  Mr.  Kipling  will  be  held  in  honorable 
literary  remembrance  are  very  different  from 
those  that  determine  his  present  popularity.  It 
may  be  said  that  c  The  Recessional '  affords 
common  ground  upon  which  the  man  of  taste 
and  the  groundling  may  stand  in  voicing  the 


Idiom  and  Ideal  133 

praises  of  its  author.  This  is,  no  doubt,  a  fine 
poem,  although  not  without  obvious  faults,  and 
it  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  the  uncritical  public 
that  the  poem  found  so  responsive  an  echo  in  so 
many  hearts.  But  when  we  find  many  of  the 
same  voices  raised  in  praise  of  l  The  White 
Man's  Burden,'  apparently  not  knowing  the  dif- 
ference between  the  two,  the  situation  c  gives  to 
think,'  as  the  French  say.  And  when  we  hear 
4  The  Recessional '  recited  approvingly  by  men 
who  deny  that  their  own  nation  should  ever, 
no  matter  how  greatly  it  has  sinned,  make  the 
4 ancient  sacrifice'  of  4an  humble  and  a  contrite 
heart,'  —  by  men,  in  short,  upon  whose  lips  such 
words  are  blasphemy,  —  we  may  see  the  differ- 
ence between  lip-service  and  sympathetic  appre- 
ciation of  a  poem,  and  take  at  something  like  its 
true  value  the  popular  estimate  of  this  particular 
poem  and  its  author. 

4  The  sailor  language  is  good  in  its  way,'  as 
Browning  said ;  but  it  is  not  the  way  of  great 
literature.  And  the  same  observation  holds  true 
of  the  soldier  language,  and  the  locomotive-driver 
language,  and  the  Anglo-Indian  language. 


134  Various  Views 

'For  it's  Tommy  this,  an'  Tommy  that,  an'  "Chuck 

him  out,  the  brute!" 
But  it 's  "  Saviour  of  'is  country  "  when  the  guns  begin 

to  shoot; 
An'  it's  Tommy  this,  an'  Tommy  that,  an'  anything 

you  please; 
An'   Tommy  ain't   a   bloomin'    fool  —  you    bet    that 

Tommy  sees!' 

This  sort  of  thing  is  amusing,  and  vigorous,  and 
even  ethically  sound ;  but  it  is  not  literature,  for 
it  does  not  square  with  the  sober  definitions. 
What,  for  example,  has  it  to  do  with  Mr. 
Morley's  4  Literature  consists  of  all  the  books 
.  .  .  where  moral  truth  and  human  passion  are 
touched  with  a  certain  largeness,  sanity,  and 
attractiveness  of  form  '  ?  And  what  remotest 
point  of  contact  does  it  have  with  this  statement 
of  Pater's  abstract  aestheticism  :  l  All  art  con- 
stantly aspires  toward  the  condition  of  music  — 
music,  then,  and  not  poetry,  as  is  so  often  sup- 
posed, is  the  true  type  or  measure  of  perfected 
art '?  Not  merely  does  the  bulk  of  Mr.  Kip- 
ling's work  —  and  of  the  work  of  those  count- 
less lesser  writers  among  whom  he  occupies  a 
typical  position  —  fail  to  become  art  in  anything 
like  this  transcendental  sense,  but  it  does  not 


Idiom  and  Ideal  135 

even  seek  to  be  art  in  the  narrow  sense  that 
takes  literature  to  be  a  self-contained  process, 
with  its  own  exclusive  ideals.  It  does  not  aim 
to  be  ideal  at  all,  but  tries  to  outdo  the  rudest 
realism  hitherto  known.  Reverting  once  more 
to  Browning's  trenchant  comment,  it  plasters  its 
clay  and  mud  in  the  foreground  of  the  landscape, 
and  wins  a  cheap  popular  applause  for  its  deft- 
ness, while  the  judicious  stand  apart  and  grieve 
at  so  violent  a  renunciation  of  idealism.  For 
art,  to  be  art  at  all,  must  be  ideal.  While  it  is 

true  that 

'  Beyond  that  art 

Which  you  say  adds  to  nature,  is  an  art 
That  nature  makes,' 

it  nevertheless  remains  the  duty  of  the  artist  to 
add  to  nature  in  the  measure  permitted  by  his 
imagination ;  failing  in  this  task,  or  deliberately 
eschewing  it,  he  is  recreant  to  his  calling,  and 
his  work  has  no  excuse  for  existence. 


136  Various  Views 


THE  REVALUATION  OF 

LITERATURE. 

Two  recent  numbers  of 'The  Atlantic  Monthly' 
have  included  in  their  contents  an  essay  well  cal- 
culated to  startle  the  readers,  especially  the  older 
readers,  of  that  conservative  magazine.  The 
essay  in  question  is  from  the  pen  of  a  new 
writer,  and  is  nothing  less  than  a  frank  revalu- 
ation of  the  work  of  Emerson.  Discarding,  as 
far  as  possible,  all  traditional  judgments,  the 
attempt  is  made  to  estimate,  from  the  broader 
because  more  cosmopolitan  standpoint  of  these 
latter  days,  and  in  the  light  of  a  fuller  knowl- 
edge than  was  in  the  possession  of  an  earlier 
generation,  the  value  of  Emerson's  contribution 
to  American  thought  and  American  literature. 
Some  of  the  conclusions  reached  by  the  critic  are 
so  far  at  variance  with  those  that  have  long  been 
seemingly  crystallized  in  the  histories  of  our 
literature  that  one  rubs  his  eyes  at  the  iconoclas- 
tic utterances,  and  wonders  if  anything  is  sacred 


Revaluation  of  Literature       137 

to  these  daring  young  men  who  are  so  busily 
engaged  in  bringing  us  new  lamps  to  exchange 
for  our  old  ones.  It  is  not  that  the  essay  betrays 
animus,  or  is  in  any  offensive  sense  an  attack 
upon  a  great  and  cherished  reputation,  but  rather 
that  its  writer  has  set  about  a  de  novo  exposition, 
and  has  freed  himself  from  the  trammels  of 
the  conventional  phrase  and  the  conventional 
attitude.  When  we  remember  the  indignation 
aroused  in  certain  quarters  less  than  fifteen  years 
ago  by  the  very  qualified  and  cautious  strictures 
of  Matthew  Arnold  upon  our  beloved  philoso- 
pher of  the  transcendental,  it  is  a  noteworthy 
sign  of  the  times  that  the  indigenous  l  Atlantic ' 
should  open  its  pages  to  an  estimate  of  Emerson 
compared  with  which  the  Arnold  essay  marks 
almost  the  extreme  of  laudatory  and  reverent 
handling. 

It  is  not  our  present  intention  to  examine  this 
newest  interpretation  of  Emerson,  or  even  to 
express  any  very  decided  opinion  upon  its  fair- 
ness, either  in  detail  or  as  a  whole.  We  doubt, 
indeed,  if  Emerson's  warmest  devotees  in  the 
past  have  ever  given  full  expression  to  their  real 
thought,  or  at  least  to  the  whole  of  their  thought, 


138  Various  Views 

upon  the  subject.  Their  panegyric  must  have 
been  accompanied  by  some  mental  reservations, 
for  upon  certain  sides  Emerson's  mind  was  curi- 
ously limited,  and  in  very  obvious  ways.  But 
we  may  profitably  seize  the  occasion  for  the 
purpose  of  a  few  reflections  upon  the  provisional 
character  of  all  contemporaneous  literary  judg- 
ments, and  upon  the  necessity  of  such  revalu- 
ations as  the  one  now  in  question,  before  any- 
thing like  finality  can  be  hoped  for.  Can  we 
never  know,  one  is  apt  to  cry  somewhat  despair- 
ingly, can  we  never  really  know  whether  the 
men  of  our  own  time,  who  so  tower  above  the 
crowd,  and  to  whom  we  bring  the  incense  of  our 
hero  worship,  are  in  fact  men  of  stature  fit  to 
stand  among  the  chosen  of  history  ?  We  can 
see  that  they  are  taller  than  the  men  about 
them,  and  can  we  not  get  their  figures  in  such 
perspective  with  the  figures  of  other  generations 
that  we  may  know  how  they  will  stand  in  the 
retrospective  view  of  our  descendants  ?  Such 
questions  as  these  are  constantly  arising  in  crit- 
ical minds  strenuous  after  absolute  truth,  and 
the  attempt  to  answer  them  in  the  affirmative  is 
as  constantly  baffled. 


Revaluation  of  Literature      139 

Yet  there  are  ways,  if  one  will  but  seek  them, 
in  which  our  judgment  of  the  men  living  in  our 
midst  may  be  in  a  measure  purified  and  brought 
into  rough  conformity  with  the  judgments  that 
will  be  recorded  by  posterity.  If  we  would 
escape  from  the  error  of  the  personal  equation, 
we  may  do  so  in  part  by  cultivating  a  tolerance 
of  opinions  not  our  own ;  if  the  national  or  racial 
equation  be  (as  it  nearly  always  is)  a  source  of 
error,  we  may  largely  eliminate  it  by  consulting 
the  judgment  of  intelligent  men  of  other  nations 
and  races.  But  if  we  adopt  the  chauvinistic 
attitude  in  such  matters,  our  case  is  quite  hope- 
less. If  we  call  all  rational  and  balanced 
criticism  that  comes  from  abroad  mere  'conde- 
scension in  foreigners,'  —  if,  what  is  worse  still, 
we  reply  to  every  adverse  English  or  Continental 
comment  with  a  childish  tu  quoque,  —  we  simply 
wrap  ourselves  up,  head  and  all,  in  the  mantle 
of  provincialism,  and  barter  our  critical  birth- 
right for  a  little  applause  from  the  meaner  spirits 
of  our  own  day  and  our  own  Little  Pedlington. 
There  is  more  truth  than  is  commonly  realized 
in  the  saying  that  we  may  find  a  sort  of  contem- 
poraneous posterity  in  foreign  opinion.  Then, 


140  Various  Views 

to  approach  the  problem  from  another  point  of 
view,  we  find  that  in  nearly  all  the  cases  in 
which  some  great  writer  has  been  ignored  by 
contemporary  opinion,  there  have  not  been  lack- 
ing in  his  own  time  a  few  clear-sighted  critics 
who  have  discerned  the  true  quality  of  the  neg- 
lected genius.  Preaching  to  deaf  ears  in  their 
own  generation,  these  critics  have  found  honor 
in  the  next,  and  shared  in  the  posthumous  praise 
that  has  come  to  the  poets  who  got  scant  praise 
while  they  were  alive.  It  may  usually  be  found 
that  in  such  unheeded  utterances  there  is  a  note 
of  conviction,  a  sense  of  absolute  certainty  that 
time  will  prove  them  to  have  been  right.  When 
we  come  upon  such  judgments,  and  realize,  with 
our  better  light,  how  well-founded  they  were,  we 
find  it  almost  impossible  to  understand  how  they 
could  have  spent  their  force  unechoed.  We  also 
learn  that  a  genuine  critical  idea,  however  long 
may  be  the  period  of  its  gestation,  emerges  into 
active  life  in  the  end.  Nothing  could  be  more 
instructive  for  us,  if  we  would  escape  the  tyr- 
anny of  the  c  subjective  criticism  '  that  so  colors 
and  distorts  the  popular  judgments  of  every 
period,  than  a  careful  study  of  the  thought  of 


Revaluation  of  Literature       141 

those  men  of  the  past  whose  intellectual  habit 
has  enabled  them  to  anticipate  the  verdict  of 
posterity  ;  nothing  could  be  more  helpful  than 
the  endeavor  to  acquire  something  of  their  tem- 
per, and  to  transfer  our  standards  to  their  objec- 
tive plane. 

In  our  age,  however,  the  question  which  con- 
fronts us  is  the  question  of  deciding  upon  relative 
values  rather  than  that  of  discovering  neglected 
genius.  There  are  so  many  voices  to-day,  and 
so  many  organs  of  opinion,  so  strong  a  determi- 
nation to  let  no  new  talent  bud  undetected,  and 
so  intricate  a  critical  apparatus  for  the  exploita- 
tion of  every  new  literary  development,  that  the 
world  is  far  less  likely  than  formerly  to  pass  the 
strong  man  by,  and  the  real  critical  danger  lies  in 
what  has  been  wittily  described  as  the  c  cygnifica- 
tion  of  geese.'  But  time  may  be  trusted  to  set 
these  false  classifications  right,  and  that  very 
speedily ;  while  we  may  with  equal  confidence 
depend  upon  the  same  potent  agency  for  the  re- 
adjustments and  the  regroupings  that  determine 
for  the  reputations  of  the  hour  their  final  stations 
in  the  pantheon  of  fame. 

The  day  seems  to  have  come  to  attempt  some 


142  Various  Views 

such  readjustment  of  the  positions  of  our  older 
American  writers,  a-nd  the  essay  which  has  fur- 
nished us  with  our  text  is  in  this  respect  timely. 
Its  very  title  reminds  us  that  it  is  now  sixty  years 
since  the  traditional  estimate  of  Emerson  was 
given  shape,  and  sixty  years  means  two  gener- 
ations. One  who  follows  the  deeper  currents 
of  opinion  can  hardly  fail  to  have  observed  that 
recent  years  have  placed  us  in  a  more  critical 
attitude  toward  the  great  men  of  our  literary 
past,  and  that  the  old  unquestioning  acceptance 
has  given  place  to  a  more  searching  and  object- 
ive examination  of  their  quality.  As  a  result  of 
this  development  of  our  critical  temper,  some 
men  have  gained  and  others  have  lost.  Lowell 
and  Whittier  have,  we  should  say,  gained  dis- 
tinctly ;  and  Hawthorne  (considering  his  finest 
work)  has  still  better  stood  the  test  of  time. 
On  the  other  hand,  Emerson,  considering  the 
fetichism  of  which  he  was  long  made  the  sub- 
ject in  certain  quarters,  could  hardly  fail  to  lose, 
just  as  Longfellow  and  Bryant  have  lost.  The 
friends  of  Lanier  have  almost  made  good  his 
title  to  a  place  among  our  major  poets,  while 


Revaluation  of  Literature       143 

the  friends  of  Parkman  have  been  quite  success- 
ful in  securing  for  him  the  highest  rank  among 
our  historians.  As  for  the  two  men  of  genius  at 
whose  names  American  opinion  has  long  looked 
askance,  while  European  opinion  has  been  lec- 
turing us  in  clamorous  fashion  upon  their  great- 
ness, we  must  say  that  the  critical  issue  is  still 
uncertain,  with  the  odds  rather  in  favor  of  Poe 
and  rather  against  Whitman.  But  in  these  two 
cases,  feeling  is  probably  even  yet  too  strong  for 
judgment,  and  we  shall  have  to  wait  until  we  get 
into  some  future  generation  c  where  beyond  these 
voices  there  is  peace '  before  we  shall  know  the 
definite  status  of  either  our  enfant  terrible  or  our 
4  good  gray  poet.'  For  one  feature  of  the  crit- 
ical reconstruction  now  in  full  swing  we  may 
all  be  devoutly  thankful,  and  that  is  the  growing 
tendency  to  break  down  the  artificial  barrier 
between  American  and  c  British '  literature,  the 
growing  realization  of  the  fact  that,  as  men  of 
essentially  one  blood  and  one  speech,  English- 
men and  Americans  are  at  work  in  the  produc- 
tion of  a  common  literature.  Despite  the  occa- 
sional mouthings  of  literary  jingoes  upon  both 


144  Various  Views 

sides  of  the  Atlantic,  the  lesson  is  now  fairly 
well  learned  that  the  standards  by  which  we 
judge  a  Tennyson  and  a  Wordsworth  must  be 
the  same  as  the  standards  by  which  we  estimate 
the  worth  of  a  Lowell  or  an  Emerson. 


The  Gentle  Reader  145 


THE  GENTLE  READER. 

AMONG  the  many  agreeable  features  of  the  holi- 
day season,  there  is  none  more  pleasant  than  the 
making  of  gifts.  The  truly  human  being,  who 
feels  himself  no  isolated  unit  in  the  total  of  con- 
scious existence,  but  rather  a  creature  linked  to 
his  fellows  by  the  countless  ties  of  sympathetic 
association,  takes  a  greater  delight  in  preparing 
holiday  surprises  for  those  who  are  dear  to  him 
than  he  does  in  the  anticipation  of  the  satisfac- 
tions that  may  reasonably  be  expected  to  accrue 
to  his  own  existence.  It  is  pleasant  to  dwell 
in  thought  upon  the  coming  days  of  relaxation, 
with  their  good  cheer  for  mind  and  body  alike, 
but  it  is  even  more  pleasant  to  make  little  plans 
for  the  happiness  of  others,  and  to  select  for 
them  those  small  mementoes  which  mean  so 
much  for  the  tastes  and  the  affections,  however 
slight  may  be  the  estimate  set  upon  them  in  the 
market-place.  Among  these  remembrances,  the 

tokens  by  which  we  express  ourselves  far  more 
10 


146  Various  Views 

effectively  than  by  means  of  any  words,  there 
are  none  more  important  than  books,  for  there 
are  none  that  are  possessed  of  so  much  of  the 
spiritual  or  symbolic  value  that  we  should  always 
seek  to  embody  in  our  gifts.  However  limited 
may  be  our  resources,  they  are  sufficient  to  com- 
pass the  procuring  of  the  richest  treasures  of  the 
spirit  as  it  is  revealed  in  literary  art.  Nor  is 
there  need  to  be  ashamed  of  the  setting  provided 
for  these  jewels,  for  the  arts  that  belong  to 
bookmaking,  as  distinguished  from  the  art  of 
the  writer  of  books,  have  grown  increasingly 
worthy  of  their  task,  and  so  cunningly  fit  the 
page  to  the  margin,  so  tastefully  fit  the  cover  to 
the  pages,  so  harmoniously  fit  the  decoration  to 
the  covers,  that  all  the  aesthetic  sensibilities  are 
gratified  at  once,  and  we  marvel  that  it  should 
be  possible  to  offer  so  much  of  the  product  of 
refined  taste  at  so  absurdly  a  small  price. 

The  majority  of  books,  of  course,  do  not  meet 
these  conditions,  being  strictly  commercial  pro- 
ducts for  the  consumption  of  philistines  ;  but  the 
wonder  remains  that  so  many  books  should  meet 
them  so  successfully;  for  to  the  book-lover  of 
nice  discrimination,  after  putting  aside  the  count- 


The  Gentle  Reader  147 

less  impossible  objects  in  the  guise  of  books  that 
are  everywhere  thrust  upon  his  attention,  there 
still  remains  the  embarrassment  of  choice  among 
the  really  desirable  editions  that  offer  him  so  much 
more  than  mere  muslin  and  paper  and  print. 
Would  he  purchase  a  Shakespeare  or  a  Dickens, 
a  Walton  or  a  Boswell,  or  even  so  modern  a 
classic  as  a  c  Marius  '  or  an  '  Omar,'  he  is  fairly 
bewildered  by  the  charms  of  at  least  three  or 
four  editions,  each  of  which  seems  at  the  moment 
of  examination  more  wholly  desirable  than  any 
other.  And  when  the  choice  is  reluctantly  made, 
his  memory  lingers  regretfully  over  the  claims  of 
the  rejected  rivals  for  his  favor,  leaving  him  not 
quite  sure  that  he  has  chosen  wisely  after  all. 

In  making  these  remarks,  we  have  had  in 
mind,  as  chiefly  deserving  of  consideration,  the 
type  of  book-lover  whom  it  was  once  the  cus- 
tom to  designate  as  c  the  gentle  reader.'  The  type 
is  an  old-fashioned  one,  but  it  happily  remains  per- 
sistent, although  seemingly  crowded  aside  by  the 
enormous  recent  expansion  of  the  reading  public 
as  a  whole.  The  gentle  reader  is  essentially  a 
reader  of  good  old  books  rather  than  of  ephem- 
eral new  ones.  He  is  apt  to  look  with  suspic- 


148  Various  Views 

ion  upon  the  celebrities  that  are  exploited  by 
publishers  and  newspapers  day  after  day,  and  to 
give  thanks  that  he  has  learned  to  eschew  the 
counsel  of  these  '  blind  mouths,'  that  he  has  long 
since  found  his  way  to  the  perennial  sources  of  lit- 
erary enjoyment.  He  is  still  with  us,  for  his  tastes 
are  still  consulted  by  our  purveyors  of  books,  and 
the  very  publishers  who  strive  eagerly  with  one 
another  for  the  acquisition  of  the  latest  novels 
by  the  latest  notorieties  take  also  good  heed  to 
provide  their  lists  with  reprints  of  the  old  estab- 
lished favorites.  The  many  libraries  of  standard 
literature  which  are  so  characteristic  a  feature  of 
publishing  at  the  present  time  surely  answer  to 
a  genuine  demand,  and  that  demand  as  surely 
testifies  to  the  fact  that  the  gentle  reader  is  insist- 
ing that  his  interests  shall  not  be  neglected. 

We  had  just  got  fairly  started  upon  this  train 
of  reflection  when  we  came  across  an  analysis  of 
the  tastes  and  the  temper  of  the  gentle  reader  so 
genial  and  so  sympathetic  that  we  were  tempted 
to  make  a  forced  loan  for  the  relief  of  our  own 
poverty  of  expression.  This  temptation  over- 
come, we  must  at  least  make  a  reference  to 
the  article  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Crothers  in  c  The 


The  Gentle  Reader  149 

Atlantic  Monthly,'  which  reveals  to  the  gentle 
reader  his  own  true  self,  and  explains  the  work- 
ings of  his  mind  so  delightfully  that  even  the 
reader  of  another  sort  may  come  to  understand 
something  of  it,  and  experience  yearnings  to  be 
himself  numbered  among  the  gentle.  But  if  we 
may  not  borrow  from  Mr.  Crothers,  we  will  at 
least  borrow  from  the  Rev.  Henry  Van  Dyke, 
who  has  also  paid  his  compliments  to  the  gentle 
reader.  After  dismissing  the  l  simple  reader '  and 
the  4  intelligent  reader '  as  obviously  hopeless,  this 
writer  sets  forth  the  characteristics  of  the  gentle 
reader  so  charmingly  and  with  such  insight  that 
we  at  once  feel  sure  that  he  knows  whereof  he 
speaks. 

'The  gentle  reader,'  he  says,  'is  the  person  who 
wants  to  grow,  and  who  turns  to  books  as  a  means  of 
purifying  his  tastes,  deepening  his  feelings,  broadening 
his  sympathies,  and  enhancing  his  joy  in  life.  Litera- 
ture he  loves  because  it  is  the  most  humane  of  the  arts. 
Its  forms  and  processes  interest  him  as  expressions  of  the 
human  striving  towards  clearness  of  thought,  purity  of 
emotion,  and  harmony  of  action  with  the  ideal.' 

But  better  than  any  characterization  of  the 
gentle  reader  —  better  even  than  Dr.  Van  Dyke's 
analysis,  is  the  concrete  example  offered  by  many 


150  Various  Views 

a  man  of  letters  who  has  taken  the  public  into  his 
intimacy,  and  helped  us  to  feel  and  to  share  his 
delight  in  good  literature.  Emerson  and  Lowell, 
Lamb  and  FitzGerald,  were  gentle  readers  of  the 
most  typical  sort,  and  their  success  in  the  voca- 
tion was  complete.  W  hen  Mr.  James  Lane  Allen 
interrupts  the  course  of  a  novel  to  bring  in  whole 
pages  of  Malory,  we  instantly  know  him  for  a 
gentle  reader.  Others,  again,  seem  to  have  the 
desire  to  be  gentle  readers,  but  the  true  vocation 
is  lacking.  Mr.  Ruskin  was  too  intolerant  of 
opinions  not  his  own  to  become  one,  and  Mr. 
Frederic  Harrison,  try  as  hard  as  he  may  to  get 
in,  is  kept  outside  the  sanctuary  by  what  may  be 
called  the  strenuosity  of  his  positivism.  He  makes 
a  valiant  plea  for  all  good  books,  but  we  feel  while 
he  is  making  it  that  they  have  appealed  to  his  intel- 
ligence, and  indirectly,  by  virtue  of  their  signifi- 
cance for  the  history  of  culture,  and  not  directly 
by  virtue  of  their  quality  of  deep  human  sym- 
pathy. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  know  FitzGerald  as  a 
genuine  member  of  the  guild  from  almost  any  ran- 
dom page  of  his  familiar  correspondence.  By  way 
of  bonnes  bouches,  and  as  the  best  possible  illustra- 


The  Gentle  Reader  151 

tion  of  our  text,  let  us  close  by  extracting  a  pas- 
sage or  two  from  the  letters  in  which  his  quality 
as  a  bookman  is  most  clearly  exhibited. 

'  I  am  now  a  good  deal  about  in  a  new  Boat  I  have 
built,  and  thought  (as  Johnson  took  Cocker's  Arithmetic 
with  him  on  travel,  because  he  shouldn't  exhaust  it) 
so  I  would  take  Dante  and  Homer  with  me,  instead  of 
Mudie's  Books,  which  I  read  through  directly.  I  took 
Dante  by  way  of  slow  Digestion  :  not  having  looked  at 
him  for  some  years  :  but  I  am  glad  to  find  I  relish  him 
as  much  as  ever  :  he  atones  with  the  Sea  ;  as  you  know 
does  the  Odyssey  —  these  are  the  Men  !  * 

'  I  wonder  whether  old  Seneca  was  indeed  such  a  hum- 
bug as  people  now  say  he  was  :  he  is  really  a  fine  writer. 
About  three  hundred  years  ago,  or  less,  our  divines  and 
writers  called  him  the  Divine  Seneca  ;  and  old  Bacon  is 
full  of  him.  One  sees  in  him  the  upshot  of  all  the  Greek 
philosophy,  how  it  stood  in  Nero's  time,  when  the  Gods 
had  worn  out  a  good  deal.  I  don't  think  old  Seneca 
believed  he  should  live  again.  Death  is  his  great  resource. 
Think  of  the  rococosity  of  a  gentleman  studying  Seneca 
in  the  middle  of  February  1844  in  a  remarkably  damp 
cottage.' 

« I  cannot  get  on  with  Books  about  the  Daily  Life 
which  I  find  rather  insufferable  in  practice  about  me.  I 
never  could  read  Miss  Austen,  nor  (later)  the  famous 
George  Eliot.  Give  me  People,  Places,  and  Things, 
which  I  don't  and  can't  see  ;  Antiquaries,  Jeanie  Deans, 
Dalgettys,  &c.  As  to  Thackeray's,  they  are  terrible  ; 
I  really  look  at  them  on  the  shelf,  and  am  half  afraid  to 
touch  them.  He,  you  know,  could  go  deeper  into  the 


152  Various  Views 

Springs  of  Common  Action  than  these  Ladies  :  won- 
derful he  is,  but  not  Delightful,  which  one  thirsts  for  as 
one  gets  old  and  dry.* 

'  Of  course  the  Man  must  be  a  Man  of  Genius  to  take 
his  Ease,  but,  if  he  be,  let  him  take  it.  I  suppose  that 
such  as  Dante,  and  Milton,  and  my  Daddy,  took  it  far 
from  easy  :  well,  they  dwell  apart  in  the  Empyrean  ; 
but  for  Human  Delight,  Shakespeare,  Cervantes,  Boc- 
caccio, and  Scott.* 

It  is  worth  while  to  be  able  to  read  books  in 
the  spirit  of  the  writer  of  these  passages,  worth 
while  even  at  the  expense  of  a  few  crotchets 
and  a  certain  amount  of  irrationality.  And  it 
is  also  worth  while  to  learn  the  lesson  of 
FitzGerald's  absolute  sincerity  in  stating  his 
likes  and  dislikes.  If  our  personal  judgments 
are  in  line  _  with  the  established  verdict  of 
criticism,  well  and  good  ;  but  if  they  are  not, 
there  is  no  virtue  in  pretending  to  the  contrary. 
The  gentle  reader,  at  least,  whatever  his  faults, 
knows  the  things  he  likes,  and  they  are  pretty 
apt  to  be  the  things  that  the  world  has  agreed 
with  him  in  liking. 


Triumph  of  the  Novelist       153 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  NOVELIST. 

DURING  the  greater  part  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  novel  has  been  the  most  distinctive  of 
literary  forms.  Historians  of  literature  have  so 
amply  recognized  the  fact  and  critics  have  so 
copiously  moralized  over  it  that  the  subject  has 
become  almost  as  hackneyed  as  that  of  the 
weather.  The  Puritan  prejudice  against  novel- 
reading,  once  almost  as  potent  as  the  Moham- 
medan injunction  against  graphic  portrayal  of  the 
human  form,  has  so  completely  vanished  from 
the  general  consciousness  of  the  public  that  we 
look  with  curious  wonder  at  the  belated  preacher 
who  still  here  and  there  voices  a  protest  that 
would  have  found  much  support  a  generation 
or  two  ago,  and  that  now  falls  upon  absolutely 
unheeding  ears.  We  read  novels  nowadays  as 
a  matter  of  course,  just  as  we  go  to  the  theatre 
and  eat  mince  pies,  although  all  of  these  prac- 
tices were  condemned  by  the  sterner  morality 
of  our  forefathers.  And  not  only  do  we  read 


154  Various  Views 

novels  without  compunctions  of  conscience,  but 
we  are  actually  encouraged  to  read  them  by 
those  to  whom  we  look  for  intellectual  and 
spiritual  guidance.  Our  high  schools  and  col- 
leges prescribe  courses  in  novel-reading,  and  our 
clergymen  take  them  as  texts  for  their  sermons 
in  a  sense  very  different  from  that  in  which 
they  used  to  be  taken  by  gentlemen  of  the  cloth 
trained  in  the  traditions  of  an  older  school. 

\Vhile  nineteenth-century  readers  have  been, 
as  a  class,  almost  universally  addicted  to  the 
fiction-habit,  there  is  no  reason  for  thinking  that 
the  readers  of  the  twentieth  century  will  be  any 
the  less  so  addicted.  Philosophical  critics  some- 
times tell  us  that  the  novel  will  run  its  course  and 
be  replaced  by  something  else,  just  as  the  drama 
and  the  poem  and  the  essay  have  at  other  times 
and  in  other  lands  run  their  respective  courses, 
and  lapsed  from  favor.  But  these  critics  do  not 
give  us  any  very  definite  forecast  of  what  the 
coming  literary  fashion  is  to  be,  and  the  novelist 
meanwhile  snaps  his  fingers  at  all  such  icono- 
clasts. He  simply  keeps  on  producing  what  the 
public  wants,  with  small  regard  for  the  opinions 
of  those  who  tell  us  what  the  public  ought  to 


Triumph  of  the  Novelist       155 

want.  He  has  ridden  upon  the  top  wave  of 
prosperity  to  the  very  verge  of  a  new  century, 
and  it  is  his  evident  intention  to  carry  into  that 
century  the  practice  of  the  arts  whereby  his  con- 
spicuous fortunes  have  heretofore  been  achieved. 
Nearly  all  the  prizes  of  the  literary  life  come  to 
him,  and  he  finds  it  very  pleasant  to  have  them. 
Yachts  and  villas  and  other  expensive  luxuries 
are  within  his  reach,  and  he  looks  down  with 
patrician  pride  upon  the  poor  poet  in  his  garret, 
or  upon  the  mere  thinker  whose  intellectual 
work  is  done  in  the  hours  that  can  be  spared 
from  the  uncongenial  toil  upon  which  he  must 
depend  for  subsistence. 

A  reflective  person,  contrasting  the  position 
of  the  popular  novelist  with  that  occupied  by 
the  scholar  whose  strenuous  pursuit  of  truth 
receives  but  slight  recognition  from  his  gener- 
ation, can  hardly  refrain  from  a  certain  indig- 
nation at  so  unequal  a  distribution  of  the  gifts 
of  fortune.  The  fiction-writer  who  succeeds  in 
catching  the  popular  ear  finds  his  path  made 
easy  ever  thereafter.  Intellectually  he  may  be 
one  of  the  feeblest  of  mortals,  yet  the  halo  of 
fame  encircles  his  head  for  the  time,  and  he 


156  Various  Views 

may  with  comparative  impunity  wax  oracular 
even  upon  subjects  of  which  he  is  most  densely 
ignorant.  On  the  other  hand  the  quiet  thinker 
must  struggle  to  get  an  audience,  even  for  ideas 
which  he  is  perhaps  the  best-qualified  man  in 
the  world  to  express,  and  may  count  himself 
fortunate  if  his  laborious  days  earn  for  him  an 
existence  of  the  most  precarious  and  exiguous 
sort.  He  does,  indeed,  take  comfort  in  the 
assurance  that  his  work  is  done  for  a  posterity 
that  will  have  forgotten  the  very  name  of  the 
writer  who  now  basks  in  the  sun  of  popular 
favor,  and  in  this  faith  may  find  strength  to 
scorn  the  delights  of  the  present  day,  but  his 
task  is  none  the  less  a  thankless  one,  and  the 
age  is  none  the  less  dishonored  that  makes  it 
such.  Think,  for  example,  of  what  the  world 
has  done  for  Mr.  Rider  Haggard  and  Mr.  Her- 
bert Spencer.  A  few  novels,  considered  as  lit- 
erature almost  beneath  contempt,  have  earned 
for  the  one  many  times  over  what  has  been 
earned  for  the  other  by  the  forty  years  that  have 
gone  to  the  building  up  of  one  of  the  most 
imposing  and  substantial  edifices  of  thought  ever 
added  to  the  possessions  of  mankind.  Doubtless, 


Triumph  of  the  Novelist       157 

this  material  view  of  the  reward  of  effort  is  not 
the  only  view  that  should  be  taken,  but  the  lives 
of  most  men  are  so  hedged  about  by  material 
limitations  and  conditioned  by  material  necessities 
that  it  must  be  reckoned  with  in  determining  the 
balance  of  justice  between  every  man  and  his 
contemporaries. 

If  the  triumph  of  the  novelist  were  a  condition 
that  concerned  only  the  best  producers,  there 
would  not  be  so  much  cause  to  rail  at  the  degen- 
eracy of  an  age  that  exalts  the  writer  of  fiction 
over  literary  workers  of  other  classes.  Fiction, 
at  its  highest,  is  one  of  the  noblest  of  the  arts, 
and  it  would  be  difficult  to  bestow  recognition 
too  generous  upon  a  Scott  or  a  Thackeray,  a 
Balzac  or  a  Tourguenieff,  a  George  Eliot  or  a 
George  Sand.  Bnt  the  deserved  triumph  of  such 
writers  is  attended  by  an  absurdly  exaggerated 
estimate  of  the  hosts  of  the  undeserving.  The 
whole  mass  of  contemporary  fiction  benefits  by 
the  lift  given  the  art  by  its  masters,  few  in  num- 
ber as  they  are.  And  the  best  writers  are  by  no 
means  the  most  successful.  Mr.  Hardy  and  Mr. 
Meredith  are  far  less  popular  than  Mr.  Hall  Caine 
and  Mr.  Rider  Haggard,  although  the  latter  are 


158  Various  Views 

mere  bunglers,  while  the  former,  for  all  their 
perversities,  are  artists  of  distinctive  genius. 
The  attitude  of  our  present-day  public  towards 
fiction-writers  as  a  class  encourages  the  notion 
that  anybody  knows  enough  to  write  a  novel,  and 
this  notion,  which  might  otherwise  be  harmless 
enough,  is  made  perniciously  effective  by  the 
publishers,  who  make  it  possible  for  almost  any- 
body to  get  a  novel  printed.  And  so  we  have 
every  year  new  novels  by  the  hundreds,  by  the 
thousands,  novels  that  have  not  the  slightest 
claim  upon  any  genuine  intellectual  interest,  pre- 
posterous inventions  that  can  only  blunt  the 
artistic  sense  of  those  who  are  foolish  enough  to 
read  them,  exploitations  of  every  variety  of  dis- 
eased fancy  and  perverted  imagination,  guides  to 
the  conduct  of  life  by  young  persons  who  know 
nothing  of  life  themselves,  books  written  with 
no  higher  aim  than  amusement  that  are  too  dull 
even  to  achieve  that  aim,  productions  of  incom- 
petent scribblers  who  might  have  found  honest 
employment  in  farming  or  in  housekeeping,  and 
made  their  activities  of  some  real  use  to  society. 
Professor  Brander  Matthews,  in  an  entertain- 
ing essay,  draws  an  ingenious  parallel  between 


Triumph  of  the  Novelist       159 

the  art  of  novel-writing  and  the  game  of  whist. 
Dr.  Pole  recognizes  four  stages  in  the  evolution 
of  whist,  the  Primitive  Game,  the  Game  of 
Hoyle,  the  Philosophical  Game,  and  the  Latter- 
day  Improvements.  Four  stages,  not  dissimilar 
to  these,  may  be  recognized  in  the  evolution  of 
the  novel.  Professor  Matthews  dubs  them  the 
Impossible,  the  Improbable,  the  Probable,  and 
the  Inevitable  stages.  The  c  Arabian  Nights,' 
'  Les  Trois  Mousquetaires,'  '  Vanity  Fair,'  and 
'The  Scarlet  Letter'  are  given  as  examples  of  the 
four  kinds  of  fiction.  But,  just  as  all  four  forms 
of  the  game  are  still  practiced  by  different  sets  of 
players,  the  later  having  failed  to  displace  the 
earlier  ones,  so  all  the  four  forms  of  fiction  are 
still  produced  by  different  sets  of  writers,  and 
each  still  finds  its  own  public.  The  parallel  is 
interesting,  and  reasonably  justified  by  the  facts, 
but  its  formulator  should  have  added  that  there 
is,  and  always  has  been,  a  fifth  kind  of  fiction, 
corresponding  to  the  variety  of  whist  known  as 
bumblepuppy.  And  our  pride  in  the  develop- 
ments that  the  art  of  fiction  has  unquestionably 
made  during  the  last  half-century  must  be  con- 
siderably tempered  when  we  reflect  that  the  great 


160  Various  Views 

mass  of  modern  novels  comes  from  writers  who 
do  not  play  the  game  in  accordance  with  the 
rules  of  any  system,  primitive  or  philosophical. 
In  a  word,  the  ascendancy  of  fiction  in  our 
latter-day  literary  production  is  not  altogether  the 
mark  of  a  heightened  appreciation  of  art.  The 
triumph  of  the  novelist  is,  to  a  considerable 
degree,  a  triumph  of  ineptitude  over  ability,  of 
lower  over  higher  ideals,  of  slovenly  over  pains- 
taking workmanship,  of  incoherence  and  dispro- 
portion over  measured  and  organic  art. 


The  Revival  of  Romance       161 


THE  REVIVAL  OF  ROMANCE. 

AN  attentive  reader  of  a  certain  issue  of  c  The 
Dial '  must  have  noticed  the  fact  that  no  less 
than  three  of  the  chief  contributions  to  that  issue 
frankly  espoused  the  cause  of  romance  as  against 
the  claims  that  have  been  put  forward  so  stren- 
uously of  recent  years  in  behalf  of  realism.  This 
conjunction  of  opinion  was  purely  fortuitous  and 
unpremeditated,  and  may  for  that  reason  be  taken 
as  a  really  significant  sign  of  the  times.  When  the 
critic  wrote  of  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  as  a  heroic 
figure  presented  c  to  a  world  which  is  all  ready  to 
enjoy  romance  once  more  ';  when  the  essayist 
sought  to  analyze  c  the  ordinary  and  the  com- 
monplace to  see  why  they  fail  to  afford  materials 
for  great  art,'  and  concluded  by  saying  that  he 
could  not  '  conceive  of  anything  more  useless 
than  a  literature  which  reproduces  life  without  a 
background  of  thought  and  imagination ';  when 
the  poet  personified  triumphant  Romance  return- 
ing to  her  own,  and  saying : 


162  Various  Views 

'  Since  of  the  oldest  dynasty  am  I, 
Delight  of  life  within  my  gift  doth  lie  ; 
The  heart  of  man,  of  woman,  and  of  child, 
Without  me  were  to  fate  unreconciled. 
A  space  hath  Human  Fashion  banished  me; 
But  Human  Fashion  will  soon  weaned  be! 
I  only  wait  the  unfed  heart's  recall, 
To  take  my  place  —  my  place  supreme  in  all,' — 

All  three,  critic,  essayist,  and  poet  alike,  were 
expressing,  each  in  his  own  language,  essentially 
the  same  truth,  the  truth  that  Art  must  better 
Nature  and  transcend  it  unless  it  is  prepared  to 
abdicate  its  ancient  empire. 

The  new  romanticism,  as  was  also  pointed 
out  by  at  least  one  of  these  writers,  is  not  quite 
the  same  thing  as   the  old,  for  it  has  learned 
something  from  the  rival  by  which  it  has  been 
for  a  time  supplanted.     What  it  has  learned  is 
the  Shakespearian  lesson  that 
« Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean, 
But  Nature  makes  that  mean:  so,  o'er  that  art, 
Which,  you  say,  adds  to  Nature,  is  an  art 
That  Nature  makes.   .   .   .   This  is  an  art 
Which  does  mend  Nature  —  change  it  rather:  but 
The  art  itself  is  Nature.' 

When  we  speak  of  the  prospective  or  accom- 
plished revival  of  romance,  we  do  not  mean  the 
sort  of  the  thing  that  satisfied  the  eighteenth 


The  Revival  of  Romance       163 

century.  l  The  Castle  of  Otranto,'  and  l  Mel- 
moth  the  Wanderer,'  will  hardly  serve  as  proto- 
types of  the  new  product  —  atavism  cannot  go 
as  far  as  that  —  but  the  romanticism  that  is  now 
carrying  literature  before  it  is  a  form  of  art  that, 
like  the  giant  of  Greek  fable,  gains  renewed 
strength  from  contact  with  the  earth.  The 
romancer  is  no  longer  privileged  to  live  in  the 
clouds,  or  to  dispense  with  the  probabilities,  but 
he  is  nevertheless  constrained  to  idealize  and 
ennoble  those  aspects  of  life  with  which  he 
is  concerned,  and  to  view  them,  not  with  the 
scientist,  through  a  microscope,  but  with  the 
philosopher,  sub  specie  ceternitatis. 

The  terms  realism  and  romanticism  have  been 
so  bandied  about  in  critical  discussion,  have  been 
made  so  hackneyed  by  indiscriminate  use,  that 
we  hesitate  to  drag  them  forth  once  more  from 
their  decent  veteran  retirement.  And,  as  we 
have  frequently  maintained,  they  almost  wholly 
lose  their  special  signification  when  we  seek  to 
apply  them  to  literature  of  the  first  order.  It  is 
the  shallowest  sort  of  criticism  that  will  be 
content  to  label  the  c  Inferno '  as  realistic  and 
4  Hamlet '  as  romantic.  Where,  as  in  the  case 


164  Various  Views 

of  the  world-masterpieces,  we  are  in  the  presence 
of  the  sheerest  Vision,  the  tint  of  the  glasses  ^nd 
the  index  of  their  refraction  become  matters  of 
small  importance.  It  is  only  upon  a  lower  plane 
of  literature  that  the  distinction  between  realism 
and  romanticism  actually  exists ;  it  is  a  distinc- 
tion hardly  to  be  made,  for  example,  between 
Scott  and  Balzac,  or  between  TourgueniefF  and 
Hawthorne ;  but  it  may  properly  be  drawn  in  a 
discussion  of  Stevenson  and  Mr.  Gissing,  or  of 
Black  and  Mr.  Howells.  It  is  a  distinction  that 
exists  only  because  of  a  one-sided  development 
or  a  defective  artistic  endowment. 

It  seems  to  us  that  the  signs  are  multiplying 
upon  every  hand  to  show  that  the  star  of  this 
narrower  realism  is  waning,  and  that  the  world 
is  once  more  coming  to  its  own  in  the  ideal  realms 
of  the  imagination.  Indeed,  when  we  think  of 
the  other  arts,  of  painting  and  music  for  example, 
the  sort  of  thing  that  we  are  accustomed  to  call 
realism  appears  as  a  belated  parallel  of  the  work 
that  found  favor  in  those  arts  a  generation  or 
more  ago.  It  illustrates  merely  an  iibemuundener 
Standpunkt.  When  we  think  how  far  painting 
has  got  beyond  Frith  and  the  l  Derby  Day,'  when 


The  Revival  of  Romance       165 

we  reflect  upon  the  full  meaning  of  the  Wagnerian 
triumph,  we  may  with  small  difficulty,  if  we  are 
anything  of  a  prophet,  foresee  the  time  when  men 
shall  look  back  upon  the  petty  realism  of  the  past 
score  of  years  with  mild  wonder  at  the  thought 
that  it  should  ever  have  been  taken  so  seriously, 
with  no  other  feeling  than  the  curious  interest 
that  we  bring  to  the  contemplation  of  such  pass- 
ing vagaries  of  thought  and  taste  as  the  history 
of  civilization  reveals  by  the  score.  The  aim  of 
art  always  has  been,  and  always  must  be,  to  get 
away  from  the  details  of  life  and  to  c  overhear ' 
its  essential  expression,  to  arrange  ideal  catego- 
ries for  familiar  facts,  to  make  them  symmetrical, 
to  classify,  and,  beyond  all  else,  to  exclude. 

What  are  some  of  the  signs  that  realism  has 
not  '  come  to  stay  '  in  our  imaginative  literature  ? 
It  may  seem  as  if  M.  Zola  had  the  ccry  '  just 
now  in  France,  but  this  is  the  most  superficial 
view  imaginable.  He  has  notoriety  enough,  no 
doubt,  but  the  sources  whence  it  springs  will  be 
dried  up  in  a  few  years,  and  then  the  bulk  of  his 
work  will  sink  out  of  sight  by  its  own  specific 
gravity.  Who  ever  wanted  to  read  c  L'Assom- 
moir  '  or c  La  Debacle '  a  second  time,  except  from 


166  Various  Views 

some  motive  secondary  to  that  of  the  satisfaction 
that  their  first  reading  gave  ?  But  we  recur  with 
delight  to  Hugo  and  Dumas  and  George  Sand, 
and  no  custom  can  stale  their  infinite  variety. 
Why  have  Mr.  Sienkiewicz  and  Signer  d'An- 
nunzio  achieved  lasting  reputations  in  their  re- 
spective countries  ?  The  former  has  done  it  by 
the  pure  romanticism  of  his  genius,  and  the  latter 
in  spite,  not  because,  of  his  over-insistence  upon 
sordid  facts.  Why  are  'Johannes '  and  c  Hannele ' 
and  4Die  Versunkene  Glocke'  the  most  strik- 
ing things  in  recent  German  literature  ?  Simply 
because  they  strike  the  note  of  idealism  once 
more.  Why  are  the  careers  of  Herr  Bjornson 
and  Dr.  Ibsen  so  illuminative  for  our  thesis  ? 
Because  each  of  these  great  men  presents  in 
epitome  the  artistic  experience  of  the  generation. 
That  is,  because  each  of  them  began  his  work  in 
the  purest  romantic  spirit,  was  for  a  time  led 
astray  into  the  morass  of  realism,  and  is  now 
groping  his  way  back  to  the  sunlit  meadows  of 
idealism.  And  because  the  former  of  these  men 
never  got  so  far  from  the  true  path  as  did  the 
other,  the  totality  of  his  work  will,  in  the  final 
estimate,  be  held  the  greater  and  more  enduring. 


The  Revival  of  Romance       167 

In  England  and  America  the  swing  of  the 
pendulum  toward  romanticism  is  equally  evi- 
dent. The  exceptional  delicacy  and  charm  of 
their  workmanship  is  all  that  keeps  us  reading 
the  successive  productions  of  Mr.  Howells  and 
Mr.  James.  They  no  longer  produce  any  kind 
of  a  thrill ;  the  force  by  which  they  once  pro- 
duced it  is  spent.  In  the  work  of  Mr.  Mere- 
dith and  Mr.  Hardy  the  elements  are  so  mixed 
that  a  definite  classification  is  difficult,  yet  when 
we  reflect  upon  what  we  best  remember  in  such 
books  as  l  Richard  Feverel '  and  c  Jude  the  Ob- 
scure,' it  is  easy  to  conclude  that  their  authors 
are  most  effective  when  least  realistic.  In  our 
more  popular  fiction,  every  form  of  romance  is 
illustrated.  There  is  the  emotional  romance  of 
4  The  Christian,'  the  fantastic  romance  of  the 
1  Zenda  '  books,  the  mystical  romance  of  4  Ayl- 
win,'  and  the  historical  romance  of  c  The  Seats 
of  the  Mighty.'  Other  examples,  equally  typ- 
ical, might  be  adduced  by  the  score.  Such  are 
the  books  that  the  public  delights  to  read,  and 
their  production  is  coming  to  outnumber  over- 
whelmingly all  the  other  kinds  of  story-books. 
The  romantic  revival  is  at  full  tide,  and  contem- 


i68  Various  Views 

porary  literature  bids  fair  to  offer  us  once  more 
the  solace  that  it  brought  us  of  old.  We  have 
learned  that  it  is  extremely  foolish  to  insist  of  a 
writer  that  he  give  us  all  the  facts  connected  with 
his  theme.  We  have  learned  the  limitations  of 
literary  photography,  we  have  learned  that  it  is 
unwise  to  approach  literature  burdened  with  a 
sense  of  responsibility  for  the  preservation  of  the 
literal  truth  and  the  obtrusion  of  the  ethical 
meaning. 


The  Great  American  Novel     169 


THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  NOVEL. 

IN  one  of  the  most  exquisite  symbolical  tales  to 
be  found  among  American  writings,  Hawthorne 
has  dealt  with  the  entertainment  of  angels  un- 
awares, emphasizing  a  situation  as  old  as  liter- 
ature, as  old  perhaps  as  the  mythology  that  lies 
back  of  literature  in  the  childhood  of  the  world. 
Readers  of  '  The  Great  Stone  Face '  will  re- 
member how  it  was  prophesied  that  the  features 
carved  in  the  granite  of  the  mountains  should 
one  day  find  their  counterpart  in  warm  flesh 
among  the  inhabitants  of  the  Franconian  valley, 
and  how  the  hero  of  the  story,  looking  forward 
to  the  fulfilment  of  this  prophecy,  suffered  re- 
peated and  bitter  disappointment  as  one  famous 
man  after  another  failed  to  meet  the  test,  him- 
self all  unconscious  that  a  life  of  helpful  toil  and 
noble  aspiration  was  gradually  shaping  his  own 
features  into  the  desired  likeness,  and  his  neigh- 
bors all  unwitting  of  the  fact  that  the  long- 
heralded  incarnation  of  the  Great  Stone  Face  had 


170  Various  Views 

dwelt  in  their  midst  from  his  birth.  It  has  ever 
been  the  fashion  of  prophecy,  from  the  days  of 
the  Delphian  oracle  down  to  our  own,  to  get 
fulfilment  in  unexpected  ways ;  and  it  is  possible 
that  the  Great  American  Novel,  of  which  the 
appearance  has  so  long  been  prophesied,  may 
already  have  come  into  existence.  Many  an 
American  critic,  jealous  for  his  country's  literary 
repute,  and  eager  to  assert  the  final  emancipation 
of l  these  States  '  from  all  old-world  tyrannies  of 
the  ideal,  has  sought  to  discern  in  the  works  of 
one  American  novelist  or  another  the  typical 
expression  of  a  distinctly  American  civilization. 
But,  unless  all  preconceptions  based  upon  a 
broad  survey  of  literature  are  misleading,  we  are 
forced  to  disallow  the  pleas  of  these  over-zealous 
advocates,  and  to  admit  that  we  have  not  yet 
produced  any  novelist  really  representative  of 
American  society  in  the  sense  in  which  Balzac 
is  representative  of  French,  Thackeray  of  En- 
glish, and  Tourguenieff  of  Russian  society. 
Original  and  charming  novelists  we  have,  in- 
deed, in  considerable  numbers,  and  they  have 
filled  our  literary  picture-gallery  with  successful 
studies  of  genre ,  and  fragments  of  romance,  and 


The  Great  American  Novel    171 

bits  of  quite  praiseworthy  realism,  and  fictions 
of  character  and  manners  in  the  greatest  variety. 
We  have  also  the  full  flower  of  Hawthorne's 
genius,  and  may  rest  assured  that  neither  the  art 
nor  the  depth  of  l  The  Scarlet  Letter '  will  be 
far  surpassed  by  the  best  of  those  who  may  rise 
up  in  the  future.  But  the  Great  American  Novel 
must  be  broader  in  scope,  if  it  cannot  be  truer 
in  art,  than  this  tragic  idyll  of  Puritan  New 
Englajid,  and  so  the  title  still  seems  to  await  its 
properly  authenticated  claimant. 

Assuming,  then,  that  the  Great  American 
Novel  has  not  yet  appeared,  and  that  prophecy 
about  it  is  still  admissible,  let  us  venture  a  few 
suggestions  concerning  its  coming  and  its  char- 
acter. We  may  safely  say  that  it  will  not  come 
with  observation.  It  will  not  be  heralded  by  the 
puff  preliminary,  nor  will  hosts  of  rival  publishers 
struggle  for  possession  of  the  manuscript.  When 
it  is  given  to  the  public,  we  shall  not  be  regaled 
with  columns  of  ingenuous  gossip  about  the  per- 
sonality and  habits  of  the  author,  nor  will  advance 
extracts  be  scattered  far  and  wide  to  whet  the 
appetite  for  the  whole  magnum  opus.  It  will  be 
the  book  of  neither  the  day  nor  the  month.  Its 


172  Various  Views 

originality  will  puzzle  reviewers,  and,  unable  to 
fit  it  into  any  of  their  neat  pigeon-holes,  they  will, 
for  the  most  part,  damn  it  with  faint  praise,  or 
treat  it  with  flippant  contempt.  We  call  to  mind 
a  novel  published  in  this  country  a  few  years 
ago,  which  was  accorded  very  much  the  sort  of 
reception  just  outlined.  If  it  did  not  exactly  'fall 
flat '  from  the  press,  it  at  least  aroused  slight  en- 
thusiasm, and  soon  seemed  to  have  run  its  course. 
Yet  the  position  of  the  book  in  question  has 
grown  stronger  from  that  day  to  this.  With  little 
help  from  the  organs  of  publicity,  it  has  steadily 
enlarged  its  circle  of  readers,  and  ten  years  from 
now  will  probably  be  reckoned  among  the  note- 
worthy books  of  the  quarter  century.  We  shall 
not  name  it,  for  it  is  not  the  Great  American 
Novel,  although  it  has  some  of  the  qualities 
which  we  expect  will  characterize  that  work 
when  it  appears  ;  but  its  history  will  help  us  to 
understand  the  manner  in  which  that  eagerly- 
anticipated  production  is  likely  to  make  its  way. 
The  Great  American  Novel  will  be  borne  to  fame 
by  no  surface  ripple  of  fancy,  but  by  a  strong 
undercurrent  of  intelligent  appreciation  ;  it  will 
not  win  its  readers  by  wholesale,  but  one  at  a 


The  Great  American  Novel     173 

time,  and  each  new  reader  will  act  as  a  new 
centre  of  propagation.  When  it  has  at  last  really 
found  and  won  its  fit  audience,  it  will  probably 
become  the  fashion  also,  and  its  name  will  be 
upon  the  lips  of  fools,  for  this  penalty  of  genius 
is  always  exacted  sooner  or  later. 

So  much  for  the  manner  of  its  coming  :  let  us 
now  ask  what  the  Great  American  Novel  will 
be  like.  Since  it  is  to  be  American,  it  must  needs 
reflect  the  democratic  principle  upon  which  Amer- 
ican society  is  organized.  It  cannot  rely  upon  the 
artificial  distinctions  of  the  older  civilizations  to 
give  variety  to  its  characters,  but  must  fall  back 
upon  the  distinctions  of  mind  and  heart  that  are 
inherent  in  human  nature.  In  other  words,  it 
must  command  a  deeper  psychology  than  the 
European  novelist  needs  to  give  interest  to  his 
book.  Without  being  in  any  way  polemical,  it 
must  be  imbued  with  the  passion  of  democracy, 
based  throughout  upon  the  stout-hearted  convic- 
tion that  democracy  is  the  only  rational  •form  of 
government,  the  only  system  of  social  organiza- 
tion that  has  hogical  finality.  But  this  implicit 
democracy  which  informs  the  book  must  be  puri- 
fied from  the  faults  and  the  excesses  of  the  demo- 


174  Various  Views 

cratic  spirit  as  now  manifested  in  our  national  life. 
It  must  be  a  democracy  that  is  freed  from  arro- 
gance, that  has  substituted  idealism  for  its  pres- 
ent dull  materialism,  and  that  has  learned  the 
lesson  of  reverence. 

We  should  say  that  the  political  motive  must 
figure  among  the  leading  motives  of  the  Great 
American  Novel.  Without  beinga  political  novel 
pure  and  simple,  it  must  give  adequate  expression 
to  an  instinct  in  the  possession  of  which  even  the 
Greeks  did  not  surpass  us,  an  instinct  which  is 
in  the  very  marrow  of  our  bones.  It  may  be  to 
superficial  seeming  a  novel  of  domestic  concerns, 
yet  it  must  receive  color  and  strength  from  the 
political  motive,  and  thereby  touch  one  of  the 
most  responsive  chords  of  our  national  conscious- 
ness. Its  ethical  motives  must  be  worthy  of  a 
nation  whose  civilization  is  based  upon  Puritan- 
ism, and  whose  history  is  a  standing  testimony  to 
the  assimilative  force  of  Puritan  ideals.  It  must 
give  to  social  phenomena  their  true  ethical  rating, 
and  exalt — to  use  Schopenhauer's  classification — 
4  that  which  one  is '  above  that  \vhich  he  pos- 
sesses, or  that  which  he  appears  in  the  popular 


The  Great  American  Novel    175 

estimation.  It  must  make  the  reader  feel  how 
far  the  true  aristocracy  of  heart  and  intellect  over- 
shadows all  the  sham  aristocracies  of  wealth  and 
of  social  position  won  by  c  smartness,'  that  dis- 
tinctively American  vice.  It  must  enforce  —  but 
always  by  implication  rather  than  precept  —  the 
Goethean  lesson  that  he  alone  deserves  life  and 
freedom  who  wins  them  day  by  day ;  and  the 
other  Goethean  lesson  —  so  peculiarly  applicable 
to  a  country  where  degenerate  sons  so  often  take 
the  place  of  sturdy  ancestors  —  that  we  must  earn 
anew  the  inheritance  left  us  by  our  fathers,  if  we 
would  really  possess  it. 

That  some  such  ideas  as  these  should  inform 
the  novel  that  shall  be  a  reflection  of  what  is  best 
and  deepest  in  American  life  seems  an  almost 
inevitable  deduction  from  our  national  history  and 
circumstances.  But  the  Great  American  Novel 
must  be  no  mere  setting  of  philosophical  abstrac- 
tions. It  must,  it  is  true,  strike  deep  root  in  the 
soil  that  the  centuries  have  prepared  for  our 
civilization,  but  it  must  at  the  same  time  be  a 
concrete  and  vital  presentation  of  certain  indi- 
vidual lives  as  they  are  lived,  or  conceivably 


1 76  Various  Views 

might  be  lived,  at  the  present  day.  Such  a  novel 
is  under  bonds  to  be  an  epic  of  individualism,  for 
democracy,  if  it  means  anything,  means  la  car- 
riere  ouverte  aux  talents,  means  the  fullest  oppor- 
tunity for  the  development  of  the  individual. 
Our  imagined  work  must  have  a  hero  and  a 
heroine,  each  a  typical  figure ;  and  it  would  be  a 
fascinating  task  to  attempt  their  characterization 
in  outline.  But  this  task  would  savor  of  creation, 
and  is  not  for  the  critic  to  assume.  Yet  we  will 
go  so  far  as  to  borrow  from  the  poets  two  sugges- 
tions, one  for  the  man,  the  other  for  the  woman. 
Is  it  too  much  to  say  that  Emerson  adumbrated  the 
hero  of  our  search  when  he  wrote  the  simple  lines 
that  stand  as  a  motto  for  the  essay  on  c  Culture ' — 
*  Can  rules  or  tutors  educate 

The  semigod  whom  we  await  ? 

He  must  be  musical, 

Tremulous,  impressional, 

Alive  to  gentle  influence 

Of  landscape  and  of  sky, 

And  tender  to  the  spirit  touch 

Of  man's  or  maiden's  eye  : 

But,  to  his  native  centre  fast, 

Shall  into  Future  fuse  the  Past, 

And  the  world's  flowing  fates  in  his  own  mould 
recast.' 


The  Great  American  Novel    177 

And  may  we  not  fancy  our  heroine  to  be  the 
realization  of  such  a  type  as  is  foreshadowed  in 
the  closing  pages  of  Tennyson's  '  Princess,'  such 
a  woman  as  shall  set  herself  to  the  hero  c  like 
perfect  music  unto  noble  words,'  yet  remain  as 
distinctly  woman  as  he  is  distinctly  man  ? 


178  Various  Views 


THE  NOVEL  AND  THE  LIBRARY. 

THE  great  preponderance  of  works  of  fiction 
among  the  books  drawn  from  public  libraries 
has  always  been  a  suoject  of  much  concern  to 
librarians  and  other  men  engaged  in  the  business 
of  public  education.  It  comes  up  for  discussion 
perennially,  and  various  are  the  suggestions  made 
for  the  correction  of  what  is  generally  recognized 
as  an  evil.  While  there  is  nothing  to  say  against 
the  practice  of  reading  fiction,  abstractly  con- 
sidered, there  is  much  to  say  against  the  novel- 
reading  habit  which  seems  to  be  fastened  upon 
the  majority  of  those  who  use  our  public  libra- 
ries. When  the  statistics  of  circulation  show  that 
works  of  fiction  constitute  from  fifty  to  eighty  per 
cent  of  the  books  that  are  taken  for  home  read- 
ing, there  is  certainly  some  reason  to  think  that 
the  library  is  regarded  as  a  source  of  entertain- 
ment rather  than  of  public  education,  and  some 
reason  to  question  the  wisdom  of  taxing  the  peo- 
ple at  large  for  such  a  purpose.  Even  if  careful 


The  Novel  and  the  Library     179 

consideration  of  the  whole  subject  convinces  us 
that  a  library,  put  chiefly  to  such  uses,  is  better 
than  no  library  at  all,  and  still  on  the  whole  a 
worthy  object  of  public  support,  it  is  certainly 
obligatory  upon  those  who  control  the  supply  of 
free  books  to  use  all  possible  vigilance  in  min- 
imizing the  evil  of  thoughtless  reading,  and  in 
encouraging  the  literary  and  studious  tastes  of 
readers. 

Very  often  the  statistics  themselves  disguise 
the  evil  which  they  connot  wholly  conceal.  A 
library  which  reports  sixty  per  cent  of  fiction 
among  the  books  circulated  will  very  likely  re- 
port also  from  ten  to  fifteen  per  cent  of  juvenile 
literature  (most  of  which  is  fiction),  and  from  five 
to  ten  per  cent  of  books  in  foreign  languages, 
of  which  novels  form  the  larger  fraction.  Some 
librarians  regard  this  condition  of  affairs  with 
complacency,  and,  while  seizing  every  opportu- 
tunity  that  is  offered  to  encourage  the  reading  of 
serious  books,  still  hold  to  the  view  which  was 
advocated  by  the  late  W.  F.  Poole — the  view 
that  most  of  these  novel-readers  would  read 
nothing  at  all  unless  they  could  get  what  they 
wanted,  and  that  it  is  well  for  them  to  acquire 


i8o  Various  Views 

the  reading  habit  even  if  a  wiser  judgment  dis- 
approves of  their  habitual  selection  of  books. 
There  is  much  to  be  said  for  this  view,  and  for 
its  corollary  that  the  exercise  of  the  reading  habit 
in  any  form  tends  to  bring  about  a  gradual  ele- 
vation of  literary  taste,  especially  if  the  reader 
be  supplied  all  along  with  gentle  and  unobtrusive 
incitements  to  the  acquisition  of  better  standards 
and  broader  interests.  This  sort  of  stimulus  has 
to  be  applied  tactfully,  and  it  is  a  distinctive 
characteristic  of  the  good  librarian  that  he  knows 
how  to  apply  it  with  judgment  and  without  ruf- 
fling the  reader's  temper.  The  natural  man,  who 
has  outgrown  the  years  of  tutelage,  resents  being 
practised  upon  by  others  for  his  own  good,  and, 
although  he  may  be  led  to  the  water,  he  must  be 
left  to  believe  that  he  is  drinking  it  of  his  own 
volition. 

The  subject  of  fiction  in  the  public  library 
has  recently  come  up  for  renewed  discussion  in 
connection  with  a  report  from  Springfield,  Massa- 
chusetts, according  to  which  the  librarian,  during 
four  years,  has  reduced  the  circulation  of  fiction 
by  about  one-fourth.  This  may  not  seem  strange 
news  to  the  general  reader,  but  to  those  who  know 


The  Novel  and  the  Library     181 

anything  of  library  work  from  its  professional  side, 
the  report  is  so  startling  that  it  seems  almost  sen- 
sational. One  librarian  says  it  is  what  Lord 
Dundreary  would  have  called  a  c  staggerer.'  Ex- 
perience shows  the  percentage  of  fiction  to  be  so 
nearly  uniform  from  year  to  year  that  a  change  of 
as  little  as  five  per  cent  would  excite  comment. 
Naturally,  then,  a  change  (and  for  the  better)  of 
something  like  five  times  that  percentage  is  a 
cause  for  both  surprise  and  curious  interest.  By 
just  what  means  so  great  a  reduction  of  novel- 
reading  has  been  brought  about  we  do  not  know, 
but  so  gratifying  a  result  is  sure  to  excite  the 
spirits  of  both  inquiry  and  emulation  in  the  breasts 
of  librarians  all  over  the  country. 

There  are  many  devices  of  the  obvious  sort 
for  the  lowering  of  the  percentage  of  fiction  and 
the  raising  of  the  percentage  of  serious  reading, 
and  these  have  been  used  by  all  good  librarians  in 
the  United  States  during  the  quarter-century  that 
librarianship  has  been  recognized  as  one  of  the 
professions.  They  include  such  things  as  the  lim- 
ited supplying  of  novels  and  the  liberal  supplying 
of  better  books,  the  publication  of  annotated  and 
descriptive  lists  upon  special  subjects,  the  cooper- 


182  Various  Views 

ation  of  librarians  with  teachers  in  the  work  of 
the  schools,  the  opening  of  the  library  shelves  to 
easy  access  on  the  part  of  the  public,  and  the 
judicious  use  of  personal  counsel  on  the  subject 
of  reading.  But  there  seems  to  be  a  rather 
narrow  limit  to  the  efficacy  of  any  of  these  de- 
vices, or  of  all  of  them  together ;  if  they  have 
proved  adequate  to  effect  the  reduction  reported 
from  Springfield,  the  case  is  as  surprising  as  it  is 
exceptional,  and  few  librarians  will  be  hopeful  of 
accomplishing  similar  results  by  such  means. 
What  we  wish  now  to  consider  are  certain 
methods  of  a  farther-reaching  and  more  radical 
sort  that  have  either  been  put  into  operation  of  late 
years  here  and  there,  or  that  have  been  suggested 
by  the  recent  revival  of  interest  in  the  discussion. 
\  Mr.  Herbert  Putnam,  who  by  virtue  of  his 
official  position  is  the  leader  of  the  profession  of 
librarianship  in  America,  makes  a  suggestion  that 
may  be  pronounced  radical,  but  that  commends 
itself  to  the  sober  intelligence  after  the  first  shock 
of  surprise  is  over.  It  is,  simply,  that  no  works 
of  fiction  be  purchased  by  public  libraries  for  at 
least  a  year  after  publication.  Nothing  could  be 
more  sensible  than  the  following  words : 


The  Novel  and  the  Library     183 

'  There  is,  however,  a  demand  for  fiction  which  I  do 
not  believe  can  legitimately  be  met  by  the  public  library. 
That  is  the  demand  for  the  latest  new  novel  merely  be- 
cause it  is  the  latest  new  novel.  We  all  read  current 
novels  also  and  enjoy  and  profit  by  them.  But  the  de- 
mand for  them  is  largely  artificial,  for  a  purpose  merely 
social,  and  it  is  apt  to  be  transitory  No  free  library  can 
meet  it  adequately,  and  the  attempt  to  meet  it  is  an 
expense  and  annoyance  to  the  reader  and  expense  and 
burden  to  itself.' 

The  exclusion  of  the  newest  fiction  from  the 
library  shelves  would  doubtless  occasion  a  great 
outcry,  but  the  loss  to  the  public  would  be  more 
imaginary  than  real.  Every  librarian  knows  how 
hollow  is  the  pretence  of  meeting  the  popular  de- 
mand for  the  novels  of  the  day.  To  supply  that 
demand  would  entail  an  expenditure  that  no 
librarian  could  sanction.  Take  such  a  novel, 
for  example,  as  4  The  Crisis,'  and  such  a  library, 
for  example,  as  that  of  Chicago.  Probably  five 
hundred  people  were  daily  clamoring  for  that 
particular  novel  during  the  weeks  that  immedi- 
ately followed  its  publication.  To  satisfy  them, 
it  would  have  been  necessary  to  purchase  several 
thousands  of  copies,  with  the  absolute  certainty 
that  next  year  they  would  be  collecting  dust  upon 
the  shelves,  if  not  actually  consigned  to  the 


184  Various  Views 

lumber-room.  The  satisfaction  of  an  ephemeral 
fancy  of  this  sort  is  an  absolutely  illegitimate  de- 
mand to  make  upon  any  public  library.  The 
only  library  that  has  a  right  to  spend  money  in 
this  reckless  fashion  is  the  private  enterprise  of 
the  Mudie  type,  which  exists  for  the  special 
purpose  of  catering  to  the  taste  of  the  moment. 
What  such  a  library  as  the  Chicago  institution 
actually  does  in  the  case  of  a  novel  like  4  The 
Crisis '  is  to  purchase  forty  or  fifty  copies  of  the 
work,  and  supply  one  applicant  out  of  every  two 
or  three  hundred.  c  In  proposing  to  supply  such 
a  novel,'  says  Mr.  Putnam,  c  the  library  deludes 
the  public  and  reduces  its  capacity  for  service 
really  serviceable.'  It  does  not  really  supply 
the  demand,  and  succeeds  only  in  gratifying  an 
occasional  applicant  at  the  cost  of  creating  ex- 
asperation in  the  breasts  of  the  thousands  who, 
knowing  that  the  book  is  in  the  library,  ask  for 
it  from  day  to  day  until  they  desist  from  sheer 
weariness. 

We  are  inclined  to  think,  on  the  whole,  that 
every  public  library  would  be  well-advised  in 
adopting  Mr.  Putnam's  suggestion,  thus  forcing 
its  patrons  to  take,  as  far  as  the  library  is  con- 


The  Novel  and  the  Library     185 

cerned,  Emerson's  well-known  advice  against 
reading  books  that  have  not  kept  alive  for  at 
least  a  year.  Using  '  The  Crisis'  once  more  for 
our  illustration,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  in  a  few  years 
the  demand  for  that  excellent  story  will  have 
fallen  to  normal  proportions.  It  will  still  be  asked 
for  by  a  few  people,  and  it  will  be  as  proper  to  pro- 
vide copies  to  be  read  as  it  is  proper  to  provide 
copies  of  '  The  Spy.'  This,  of  course,  presents 
an  extreme  case,  for,  besides  the  two  or  three 
novels  that  a  capricious  public  marks  for  its  favor 
every  season,  there  are  two  or  three  hundred 
others  of  merit  sufficient  to  entitle  their  claims 
to  be  recognized.  But  the  reasoning  to  be  em- 
ployed is  similar  in  all  the  cases ;  the  demand 
for  current  fiction  is  essentially  temporary  and 
artificial,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  it  be  the  policy  of 
wisdom  to  put  into  a  public  library  any  books 
for  which  there  may  not  be  some  reasonable  de- 
mand year  after  year. 

The  librarian  who  is  unwilling  to  make  him- 
self disliked  by  refusing  to  supply  the  public 
with  current  novels  may  find  a  sort  of  way  out 
of  the  difficulty  by  adopting  a  plan  which  has 
already  been  successfully  operated  in  a  few 


i86  Various  Views 

places.  This  is  the  plan  of  opening  a  special 
department  of  new  fiction,  buying  enough  books 
to  meet  the  demand,  and  making  a  small  charge 
for  their  use.  The  doctrinaire  objection  that  all 
the  services  of  a  public  library  must  be  free  may 
be  met  by  stating  the  obvious  fact  that  this  par- 
ticular service  is  impossible  unless  it  be  made 
self-supporting.  The  fee  might  be  a  very  small 
one  —  much  less  than  that  charged  by  private 
libraries  —  and  yet  sufficient  to  make  the  books 
thus  circulated  pay  for  themselves.  The  aver- 
age novel  costs  the  library  rather  less  than  one 
dollar ;  it  may  be  in  constant  use  for  a  year  or 
more  before  it  is  worn  out ;  if  it  is  made  to  bring 
in  two  cents  a  week  during  that  year,  the  trans- 
action will  be  fair  to  all  parties  — no  appreciable 
burden,  certainly,  upon  the  reader,  and  no  burden 
upon  the  budget  except  on  the  score  of  library 
service.  At  the  end  of  the  book's  career,  it  will 
have  provided  entertainment  for  possibly  fifty 
families,  at  practically  no  cost  to  the  library;  it 
will  have  paid  for  itself,  and  may  be  thrown 
away  with  a  good  conscience.  If  the  public 
library  is,  in  any  real  sense,  to  provide  its  patrons 
with  the  latest  novels,  we  believe  that  this  is  the 


The  Novel  and  the  Library     187 

only  legitimate  way  of  doing  it.  But  we  are 
sufficiently  tainted  with  the  educational  theory 
of  the  library  to  think  Mr.  Putnam's  plan,  after 
all,  the  one  better  deserving  to  be  pursued. 

The  two  suggestions  thus  considered  are  the 
only  ones  that  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter. 
Other  suggestions  are  of  the  nature  of  ingenious 
devices  or  persuasive  methods.  One  of  the 
best  of  them  is  the  two-card  system  which  gives 
every  card-holder  the  right  to  draw  two  books 
at  the  same  time,  only  one  of  which  may  be  a 
work  of  fiction.  This  encourages  collateral 
reading  of  the  serious  kind,  and  is  said  to  secure 
good  results.  Practical  librarians  are  now  gen- 
erally learning  how  much  good  may  be  done  by 
such  things  as  open  shelves,  special  bibliographies 
of  timely  interest,  talks  with  teachers  and  school 
children,  object-lessons  in  model  collections  of 
standard  literature,  the  encouragement  of  clubs 
and  study-classes,  and  the  judicious  selection 
of  the  fiction  that  is  provided  for  circulation. 
These  means  are  all  praiseworthy,  and  are, 
in  their  aggregate  employment,  productive  of 
marked  benefit.  And,  in  all  this  discussion,  it 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  reading  of  good 


i88  Various  Views 

fiction  is  something  more  than  entertainment, 
that  it  is  a  study  of  one  of  the  great  forms  of 
creative  literature,  and  one  of  the  most  potent 
agencies  whereby  the  sympathies  may  be  quick- 
ened, the  horizon  enlarged,  the  higher  interests 
aroused,  and  culture  attained.  We  have  forever 
passed  the  day  when  thoughtful  people  could 
condemn  the  reading  of  fiction  as  such  ;  we 
have  come  to  understand  for  good  that  the  best 
novels  are  among  the  best  books  there  are,  how- 
ever much  we  may  deprecate  the  reading  of  the 
shallow  and  sensational  sorts  of  fiction. 


The  Drama  as  Art  189 


THE  DRAMA  AS  ART. 

EVERY  now  and  then,  the  consciousness  of  that 
section  of  the  public  which  is  provided  with  such 
uncomfortable  things  as  ideals  becomes  stirred  to 
the  pitch  of  indignation  in  contemplation  of  the 
degradation  to  which  some  form  of  artistic  en- 
deavor is  subjected  by  the  hard  conditions  that  a 
commercial  age  ever  seeks  to  impose,  and  usually 
succeeds  in  imposing,  upon  the  production  of  the 
art  in  question.  At  one  time  it  is  literature,  at 
another  music,  at  still  another  painting  that  comes 
up  for  discussion  ;  again,  thanks  to  the  stimulus 
of  a  lecture  by  Mr.  Israel  Zangwill,  it  is  dramatic 
art  upon  which  the  fierce  light  of  criticism  beats. 
That  the  art  of  the  playwright  will  be  bettered 
by  this  light  — or,  to  vary  the  metaphor,  by  the 
destructive  distillation  of  the  accompanying  heat 
—  is  more  than  doubtful ;  but  it  is  well  that  some 
one  should  from  time  to  time  call  public  atten- 
tion sharply  to  the  low  estate  into  which  the  stage 
has  fallen,  for  if  the  ideal  find  no  spokesman 


igo  Various  Views 

when  hardest  pressed,  its  condition  is  indeed 
hopeless.  Mr.  Zangwill,  who  has  thrown  him- 
self bravely  into  the  breach,  deserves  warm  grati- 
tude for  what  he  has  been  saying,  and  we  trust 
will  keep  on  saying,  for  the  substance  of  his  con- 
tention is  of  demonstrable  nature,  and  the  eternal 
years  of  God  belong  to  the  truths  that  are  being 
given  so  pointed  an  expression. 

Like  all  speakers  of  the  unvarnished  truth, 
Mr.  Zangwill  finds  that  his  message  is  anything 
but  acceptable  in  many  quarters.  To  say  noth- 
ing of  the  wounded  susceptibilities  of  dramatic 
managers,  and  of  the  men  who  fabricate  the  kind 
of  play  that  the  managers  want,  the  journeymen 
who  write  'dramatic  criticism'  for  the  newspaper 
press  are  quite  comically  outraged  by  his  out- 
spoken remarks.  Many  of  them  have  been  saying 
much  the  same  thing,  in  a  more  guarded  way,  all 
along ;  but  they  profess  themselves  outraged  by 
the  antics  of  this  bull  in  the  china-shop  of  modern 
vaudeville,  and  cheap  farce,  and  tawdry  melo- 
drama. They  would  roar  you  as  gently  as  any 
sucking-dove,  but  they  would  not  for  the  world 
speak  the  plain  truth  in  plain  words;  and  as  for 
the  scintillating  words  and  keen  thrusts  that  flash 


The  Drama  as  Art  191 

from  Mr.  Zangwill's  armory,  they  are  wholly 
incapable  of  forging  and  wielding  the  needed 
weapons.  Indeed,  the  lot  of  these  gentlemen 
who  write  about  the  nightly  happenings  of  the 
stage  is  no  pleasant  one.  They  have  to  deaden 
whatever  artistic  conscience  they  may  possess,  to 
invent  euphemistic  phrases  for  the  characterization 
of  bad  plays,  to  pretend  that  the  contemporary 
English  stage  is  interesting  when  they  know  in 
their  heart  of  hearts  that  it  is  not,  and,  above  all, 
to  simulate  a  virtuous  and  fiery  indignation  when 
some  dramatist  of  genius  traverses  the  petty  con- 
ventions of  an  artificial  seemliness  and  probes 
human  life  to  its  depths.  The  treatment  accorded 
to  Dr.  Ibsen  during  the  past  ten  years  by  nearly 
all  newspaper  critics  stands  in  everlasting  and 
shameful  evidence  of  their  shallow  incompetence 
as  a  tribe. 

We  are  glad,  then,  that  Mr.  Zangwill  has 
stirred  the  waters  in  which  these  criticasters  dis- 
port themselves,  and  has  called  widespread  public 
attention  to  a  few  home  truths  concerning  plays 
and  playgoers.  He  has  said  nothing  new  about 
the  subject  —  there  is  nothing  new  to  say  —  but 
he  has  placed  a  pretty  wit  at  the  service  of  a  few 


ig2  Various  Views 

of  the  old  ideas,  and  some  of  his  observations  are 
pointed  enough  to  pierce  the  utmost  thickness  of 
the  Philistine  hide.  There  is  penetrative  energy 
in  such  phrases  as  the  following:  'The  modern 
receipt  for  a  successful  play  is  a  paying  compound 
of  snivel,  drivel,  and  devil.'  4  The  old  actors  are 
dead  and  buried,  but  the  plays  are  dead  and 
printed.  You  can  buy  them  at  the  price  of  eggs, 
twenty-five  cents  a  dozen,  and  they  are  mostly 
bad.'  4The  critic  no  more  represents  the  simple 
and  occasional  playgoer  than  a  congressman  rep- 
resents the  baby  he  kisses.'  The  taste  of  these 
sayings  is  dubious,  but  an  exhibition  of  bad  taste 
is  no  new  thing  to  Mr.  ZangwilPs  readers.  Free^ 
from  this  reproach  are  such  acute  sayings  as 
these  :  4  Irving's  respect  for  Tennyson  is  unique 
in  the  history  of  the  stage  —  and  of  Irving.' 
4  Ibsen's  ink  often  runs  in  the  veins  of  his  char- 
acters.' l  The  French  stage  has  never  lost  its 
literary  tradition.  We  have  legitimatized  its  chil- 
dren, we  have  turned  its  intrigues  into  flirtations ; 
but  such  virtue  has  its  own  reward.'  The  lec- 
ture from  which  these  excerpts  are  made  is  a  sort 
of  Catling  gun  of  epigrams,  and  its  deadly  fire  is 


The  Drama  as  Art  193 

sustained  for  more  than  an  hour  with  but  brief 
pretermissions. 

The  essential  contention  of  this  censor  of  a 
degraded  art  is  that  our  playmongers  are  apt  to 
forget  that  it  is  a  form  of  art  with  which  they 
are  concerned.  When  we  think  what  the  drama 
has  been  as  a  factor  in  civilization,  when  we  re- 
call the  noble  uses  to  which  the  stage  has  been 
put  in  other  times  and  lands,  when  we  reflect 
upon  the  possibilities,  for  instruction  and  edifica- 
tion, of  the  play  which  is  conceived  as  something 
finer  than  a  means  of  amusement,  we  cannot  but 
view  with  contempt  the  English  play  which  we 
get  from  the  theatrical  syndicate  and  the  c  bad 
shopkeepers  '  of  Mr.  Zangwill's  invective.  And 
when  we  realize  that  the  drama  is  still  treated  as 
a  fine  art  in  France  and  Germany,  in  Spain  and 
Italy,  in  Russia  and  Scandinavia,  while  in  the 
English-speaking  countries  alone  it  has  fallen  to 
a  level  which  makes  meaningless  any  mention  of 
art  in  its  discussion,  we  may  well  bow  our  heads 
with  shame.  This  is  a  general  truth  of  which 
there  is  no  effective  denying,  for  the  occasional 
manager  of  high  ideals  and  the  occasional  play 


194  Various  Views 

of  literary  quality  serve  only  to  emphasize  the 
pass  to  which  the  majority  of  plays  and  managers 
have  come.  It  is  no  more  than  the  simple  truth 
to  say  that  our  audiences  do  not  want  ideas  in 
their  plays;  they  want  costumes,  and  tricks  of 
stage-carpentry,  and  farcical  situations ;  they  are 
hugely  delighted  by  a  catchy  song  or  an  utterly 
irrelevant  dance ;  they  will  tolerate  sentiment  if 
not  too  delicate,  and  even  passion  if  its  origin  be 
not  too  deep  within  the  soul ;  but  ideas  they  will 
not  have  on  any  terms. 

Is  our  popular  artistic  standard  lower  in  mat- 
ters pertaining  to  the  stage  than  it  is  in  matters 
that  concern  the  other  forms  of  art  endeavor  ? 
Mr.  Zangwill  thinks  that  it  is ;  but  we  are  not 
so  sure.  It  is  popular  taste  in  c  literature '  that 
makes  possible  the  existence  of  the  class  of  news- 
papers that  so  disgrace  American  civilization. 
Surely  the  stage,  at  its  basest,  can  do  no  worse 
than  that.  If  we  seem  to  set  up  a  higher  stand- 
ard for  books  than  we  do  for  plays,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  bad  play  forces  itself  more 
obtrusively  upon  public  attention  than  the  bad 
book.  People  view  the  former  in  public,  as  it 


The  Drama  as  Art  195 

were,  and  it  is  discussed  in  the  public  press ; 
whereas  the  latter  is  read  in  private,  and  the 
critic  usually  ignores  it  altogether.  Beneath  the 
lowest  stratum  of  books  that  are  thought  deserv- 
ing of  mention  by  newspaper  reviewers,  there  is 
a  still  lower  stratum  that  makes  up  the  chief 
reading  of  countless  thousands  of  people,  as  far 
as  they  read  books  at  all.  But  the  theatres  that 
provide  the  corresponding  forms  of  cheap  senti- 
ment and  vulgarity  are  conspicuous  in  the  public 
eye,  and  have  their  place  in  the  daily  or  weekly 
theatrical  summaries.  We  doubt,  then,  very 
much  if  the  taste  of  the  real  public  be  any  better 
in  its  reading  than  in  its  acting.  When  we  con- 
sider music,  painting,  and  sculpture,  much  the 
same  principles  hold  true.  As  in  literature,  so  in 
the  case  of  these  arts,  we  can  never  learn  what 
the  masses  really  like,  because  we  cannot  readily 
catch  them  (as  we  can  at  a  theatre)  in  the  act  of 
what  stands  to  them  for  aesthetic  contemplation. 
But  from  the  popularity  of  certain  forms  of 
music,  and  of  certain  forms  of  the  graphic  arts, — 
forms  in  which  imbecility  and  vulgarity  seek  to 
outrival  each  other  —  we  may  at  least  shrewdly 


196  Various  Views 

surmise  that  the  taste  of  the  dear  public  is  here, 
as  with  books  and  plays,  in  almost  equally  evil 
case. 

Yet  when  all  is  said,  one  important  consider- 
ation remains.  In  literature,  the  finest  forms  of 
art  are  accessible  to  everybody.  This  statement 
is  also  measureably  true  of  music,  and  painting, 
and  sculpture.  One  can  to  a  considerable  ex- 
tent come  to  understand  the  ideals  of  these  arts 
by  the  study  of  photographs  and  scores.  At  all 
events,  the  large  cities  afford  actual  examples  of 
the  highest  achievements  of  these  arts.  But  even 
the  large  cities  rarely,  if  ever,  afford  to  the  spec- 
tator examples  of  what  the  art  dramatic  at  its 
highest  can  do.  They  may  show  us  marvellous 
stage-effects,  but  they  do  not  show  us  sincerity 
of  purpose  and  unity  of  artistic  endeavor.  In 
this  respect,  it  is  true  that  in  England  and  Amer- 
ica the  drama  stands  upon  a  lower  level  than  the 
other  arts.  We  can  all  read  the  greatest  liter- 
ature at  home ;  we  can  often  hear  the  greatest 
music  perfectly  performed  ;  we  can  view  some 
of  the  greatest  works  of  painting  and  sculpture 
in  the  originals  and  all  of  them  in  trustworthy 


The  Drama  as  Art  197 

reproduction  ;  but  we  cannot  witness  such  pro- 
ductions of  the  great  plays  as  are  to  be  witnessed 
in  the  theatres  of  the  European  Continent.  Our 
productions  may  cost  a  great  deal  more,  and  be 
more  dazzling  to  most  of  the  senses,  but  they 
do  not  make  art  their  foremost  consideration, 
and  they  justify  the  reproach  that  in  our  time 
has  fallen  upon  the  English-speaking  stage. 


ig8  Various  Views 


THE  ENDOWED  THEATRE. 

THE  recent  visit  of  Mr.  William  Archer  to  this 
country,  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  close  study 
of  theatrical  conditions  on  our  side  of  the  Atlan- 
tic, has  resulted  in  a  highly  instructive  series  of 
papers  for  the  English  periodical  which  commis- 
sioned him  to  make  the  investigation,  and  has 
also  called  fresh  attention  to,  and  evoked  fresh 
discussion  of,  a  number  of  old  questions  con- 
nected with  the  art  of  the  dramatist  and  theatrical 
manager.  Mr.  Archer  is  himself  peculiarly  well- 
equipped  for  such  a  task  as  he  has  undertaken. 
Among  English  dramatic  critics  he  occupies  a 
high  place.  He  has  both  knowledge  and  sober- 
ness, and  these  qualities  combined  make  him  a 
far  more  significant  writer  of  dramatic  criticism 
than  the  effeminately  whimsical  Mr.  Beerbohm, 
the  sensationally  sentimental  Mr.  Scott,  and  the 
audaciously  paradoxical  Mr.  Shaw.  Even  the 
writing  of  Mr.  Walkley,  brilliant  and  fascinating 
as  it  is,  lacks  the  solidity  of  Mr.  Archer's  criti- 


The  Endowed  Theatre         199 

cism,  because  it  does  not  seem  to  be  as  firmly 
based  upon  the  fundamental  principles  of  dramatic 
art,  or  as  widely  conversant  with  the  modern 
literature  of  the  play. 

Among  the  many  evils  connected  with  the 
English-speaking  stage  of  our  own  time,  Mr. 
Archer  marks  out  the  l  actor-manager,'  the  'star 
system,'  and  the  4  long  run '.  for  his  most  em- 
phatic denunciation.  In  the  address  which  he 
gave  in  this  country  before  the  Twentieth  Cen- 
tury Club  of  Chicago  and  Columbia  University 
of  New  York,  he  sought  to  answer  the  question, 
4  What  can  be  done  for  the  drama  ? '  and  bore 
down  upon  these  three  evils  with  much  weight. 
We  imagine,  however,  that  for  his  audiences 
upon  these  two  occasions  he  was  slaying  the 
slain,  for  our  cultivated  public  hardly  needs  to  be 
persuaded  that  stars  and  long  runs  and  actor- 
managers  are  directly  inimical  to  all  artistic 
endeavor  for  the  betterment  of  our  theatrical 
conditions.  We  are  as  familiar  as  Englishmen 
are  with  the  bad  influence  of  these  things,  —  or, 
if  we  have  not  suffered  as  much  from  the  actor- 
manager,  we  have  for  our  very  own  the  additional 
evil  of  the  '  theatrical  syndicate,'  which  more 


200  Various  Views 

than  tips  the  scale  (this  to  be  taken  ironically)  in 
our  favor. 

We  must,  however,  hasten  to  dislodge  from 
the  minds  of  our  readers  the  notion  that  Mr. 
Archer  was  merely  destructive  in  his  criticism. 
Nothing  could  be  farther  than  this  from  the  truth. 
Unlike  Mr.  Zangwill,  our  English  visitor  of  a 
little  earlier  date,  who  dealt  with  the  same  gen- 
eral subject  of  the  low  theatrical  estate  of  England 
and  America,  Mr.  Archer  had  definite  things  to 
propose.  And  if  his  address  was  without  the 
pointed  epigrams  and  the  flashes  of  humor  that 
made  Mr.  Zangwill  so  entertaining  a  speaker,  it 
provided  ample  compensation  for  the  lack  of 
those  superficialities  in  its  rational  suggestions, 
enforced  as  these  were  by  examples  of  what  other 
countries  have  actually  *  done  for  the  drama.' 
In  a  general  way,  Mr.  Archer  was  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  endowed  theatre,  but  with  a  dif- 
ference from  the  usual  speculations  upon  this 
subject,  in  that  the  suggested  endowment  was  to 
be  private  rather  than  municipal,  a  matter  for  the 
voluntary  enterprise  of  subscribers  rather  than  for 
the  forced  enterprise  of  tax-payers.  Considered 
from  the  point  of  view  of  probability,  we  agree 


The  Endowed  Theatre        201 

•with  Mr.  Archer  in  looking  forward  to  a  private 
rather  than  a  public  endowment,  although  we 
think  it  would  be  entirely  proper  for  the  munici- 
pality to  act  in  such  a  matter.  And  we  need 
hardly  remind  our  readers  that  we  have  always 
advocated  the  endowed  theatre,  as  we  have  always 
urged  the  desirability  of  the  endowed  newspaper. 
One  of  these  days,  moreover,  the  idea  is  going 
to  take  practical  shape  in  the  mind  of  some  phil- 
anthropist, who  will  prefer  to  make  his  gift  to 
the  public  in  this  way  rather  than  to  establish  a 
new  hospital  or  art  gallery  or  public  library. 

Mr.  Archer  spoke  at  considerable  length  of 
the  successful  way  in  which  certain  German 
theatres  —  notably  the  Deutsches  Theater  of 
Berlin  and  the  Volkstheater  of  Vienna  —  have 
dealt  with  this  problem  of  supplying  the  'inner 
public  ' —  the  public  which  wants  good  art,  which 
demands  that  ideas  shall  be  set  above  accessories 
in  its  plays  —  with  its  dramatic  entertainment. 
There  is  no  reason  why  such  theatres,  the  product 
of  endowment  and  subscription,  should  not  be 
duplicated  in  our  own  country,  and  even  prove 
successful  as  commercial  enterprises,  no  reason, 
that  is,  unless  it  be  that  our  own  c  inner  public ' 


2O2  Various  Views 

is  not  large  enough.  There  is  the  rub,  no  doubt. 
The  German  public,  the  French  public,  the 
Italian  public,  the  Scandinavian  public,  all  con- 
trive, in  any  city  of  considerable  or  even  moderate 
size,  to  support  a  stage  in  healthful  activity,  and 
this  is  just  what  the  English  public  has  hitherto 
failed  to  do.  They  have  a  good  inherited  tradi- 
tion ;  we  have  cared  so  little  for  ours  that  we 
have  lost  it  altogether.  Mr.  Henry  Fuller,  who 
has  said  some  unpalatable  things  about  our  lack 
of  artistic  aptitudes,  would  probably  observe  (in 
his  not  too  serious  way)  that  it  is  not  in  us, 
racially  or  temperamentally,  really  to  care  for 
dramatic  art,  or  to  foster  it  in  the  fashion  of  the 
Continental  peoples.  Perhaps  it  is  not ;  but  the 
experiment  is  worth  trying,  and  as  long  as  it  re- 
mains untried,  we  shall  have  hopes.  The  sav- 
ing element  of  the  situation  may  not  impossibly 
come  from  the  fact  that  we  are  not  as  English 
a  people  as  our  name  implies;  that  we  have  so 
much  admixture  of  other  strains  as  to  make  the 
case  a  new  one,  not  to  be  judged  by  the  analo- 
gies of  the  past.  Our  immigrants  often  practice 
segregation  themselves,  but  their  children  be- 
come pretty  well  blended  into  the  common 


The  Endowed  Theatre         203 

American  nationality,  and  who  can  tell  a  priori 
just  what  aptitudes  and  potentialities  will  char- 
acterize the  resulting  race. 

What  we  want  of  our  stage,  and  what  we  be- 
lieve will  be  given  us  at  no  distant  day,  at  least 
in  our  largest  cities,  by  endowment  or  otherwise, 
is,  in  a  word,  this :  We  want  a  playhouse  with 
no  stars,  no  popular  successes,  no  waste  in  the 
form  of  expensive  unessentials.  We  want  upon 
the  boards  of  this  playhouse  a  body  of  trained 
and  conscientious  actors,  capable  of  playing 
many  parts  every  year,  bound  to  the  institution 
both  by  loyalty  to  its  fundamental  idea  and  by 
such  material  inducements  as  shall  insure  an 
honorable  career  and  a  comfortable  retirement. 
We  want  this  playhouse  to  have  a  repertory  of 
the  most  varied  sort,  catholic  enough  to  include 
every  genre  of  meritorious  dramatic  writing,  but 
rigorously  excluding  what  is  sensational,  childish, 
or  merely  vulgar.  We  want  it  to  present  the 
classical  drama  of  English  and  foreign  literatures 
frequently  enough  to  give  those  who  wish  it  an 
opportunity  to  become  acquainted  with  the  mas- 
terpieces of  ancient  and  modern  dramatic  art. 
We  want  it  to  be  constantly  on  the  lookout  for 


204  Various  Views 

promising  works  by  new  writers,  extending  to 
them  the  frankest  recognition,  yet  never  making 
a  fad  of  any  one  of  them,  or  any  school  of  them. 
We  want  it  to  be  both  grave  and  gay,  a  place  to 
which  we  may  resort  for  diversion  and  for  edifi- 
cation alike.  We  want  it  to  be  a  place  in  which 
young  persons  may  learn  something  about  life, 
and  acquire  standards  of  taste,  yet  a  place  from 
which  young  persons  should  sometimes  be  ex- 
cluded, not  by  administrative  prescription  but 
rather  by  the  judgment  and  discrimination  of 
their  elders.  Finally,  we  want  it  to  be  a  place 
in  which,  while  nothing  is  neglected  that  will 
heighten  the  legitimate  interest  of  the  drama, 
ideas  shall  be  paramount  to  all  other  considera- 
tions in  the  selection  and  the  mounting  of  the 
pieces  to  be  produced. 

It  does  not  seem  to  us  that  the  plan  thus  out- 
lined is  beyond  the  range  of  the  immediately 
practicable.  In  New  York  and  Chicago  cer- 
tainly, in  Boston  and  Philadelphia  possibly,  the 
public  that  desires  such  a  theatre  is  large  enough 
to  justify  its  establishment.  There  must  be 
thousands  of  people  in  those  cities  who  would 
support  such  a  theatre  to  the  extent  of  from  ten 


The  Endowed  Theatre         205 

to  one  hundred  dollars  each,  every  year.  What 
is  needed  is  the  organizing  power  necessary  to 
bring  these  people  into  cooperation,  with  possi- 
bly the  stimulus  of  the  provisional  gift  of  a  site 
and  a  building.  We  notice  that  Mr.  Howells, 
while  commenting  on  the  whole  favorably  upon 
this  suggestion,  seems  to  think  that  the  well-to-do 
class  of  people  who  would  control  the  manage- 
ment of  such  a  theatre  might  impose  a  censorship 
inimicable  to  the  free  development  of  the  drama. 
'  In  a  theatre  founded  or  controlled  by  them,  no 
play  criticising  or  satirizing  society  could  be 
favored,'  he  says,  and  instances  c  An  Enemy  of 
the  People,'  'Arms  and  the  Man,'  'Die  Weber,' 
and  '  Die  Ehre,'  as  plays  that  could  not  hope  for 
presentation.  This  seems  to  us  the  merest  bug- 
bear, and  the  force  of  the  criticism  is  certainly 
not  increased  by  the  reference  to  '  what  has 
happened  in  some  of  our  higher  institutions  of 
learning.'  Mr.  Howells  make  a  much  happier 
suggestion  when  he  finds  an  analogy  between 
the  subscription  theatre  and  the  subscription 
lecture  organizations  which  exist  in  many  parts 
of  the  country,  and  which,  for  a  moderate  fee, 
give  themselves  'the  pleasure  of  seven  or  eight 


206  Various  Views  » 

lectures  during  the  season,  from  men  who  are 
allowed  to  speak  their  minds.  With  a  subscrip- 
tion of  twenty-five  dollars  they  could  have  as 
many  plays,  from  dramatists  who  also  spoke 
their  minds  ;  and  if  the  experiment  were  tried 
in  ten  or  twenty  places,  we  should  have  at  once 
a  free  theatre,  where  good  work  could  make  that 
appeal  to  the  public  which  it  can  now  do  only  on 
almost  impossible  terms.' 


A  Pedagogical  Prescription     207 


M.  BRUNETlfcRE'S  PEDAGOGICAL 

PRESCRIPTION. 

THE  visit  to  this  country  of  M.  Ferdinand 
Brunetiere  is  one  of  the  most  important  'literary' 
events  of  recent  years.  In  significance  and  in- 
fluence, it  may  be  compared  only  with  Matthew 
Arnold's  visit  of  fifteen  years  earlier;  for  M. 
Brunetiere  is  as  distinctly  the  first  of  living  French 
critics  as  Arnold  was  of  English  critics  then 
living.  This  does  not  in  either  case  mean — it 
never  means  —  that  any  one  man  can  be  an  ab- 
solute ruler  in  the  critical  domain,  or  that  all  of  his 
judgments  must  be  taken  as  finally  authoritative. 
But  it  does  mean,  with  both  the  Englishman  and 
the  Frenchman,  that  an  unusually  successful 
effort  to  eliminate  the  personal  equation,  and  to 
see  things  as  they  absolutely  are,  has  invested  the 
judgments  of  these  two  men  with  a  degree  of 
authority  hardly  to  be  claimed  for  any  others  of 
their  generation. 

In  one  of  his  New  York  lectures,  M.  Brune- 


208  Various  Views 

tiere  said  that  no  one  had  followed  more  anx- 
iously or  more  disinterestedly  than  himself  the 
French  literary  movement  of  the  past  score  of 
years.  He  then  added,  in  a  passage  which  may 
be  taken  as  the  keynote  of  his  entire  critical 
career : 

'  The  first  condition  of  disinterestedness  is  never  to 
follow  one's  tastes,  and  to  begin  by  distrusting  the  things 
which  give  us  pleasure.  The  most  delicious  dishes  are 
not  the  most  wholesome;  we  never  fail  to  distinguish  be- 
tween our  cooks  and  our  doctors.  In  the  moral  world 
the  beginning  of  virtue  is  to  distrust  what  is  most  natural 
to  us,  and  the  same  is  true  in  the  intellectual  world.  To 
distrust  what  we  like  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom  in  art 
and  literature.' 

These  words  represent  so  accurately  what  has 
always  been  our  attitude  toward  the  fundamental 
doctrine  of  criticism  that  we  hardly  need,  in  so 
many  words,  to  express  our  concurrence  with 
M.  Brunetiere  in  this  all-important  matter.  That 
the  value  of  literary  work  must  be  determined 
with  reference  to  law  and  not  to  caprice,  that 
the  only  valid  critical  judgments  are  those  which 
are  free  from  the  taint  of  subjectivity,  and  that 
personal  opinion  represents  only  a  rudimentary 
stage  in  the  development  of  criticism,  are  propo- 
sitions that  mean  substantially  the  same  thing, 


A  Pedagogical  Prescription     209 

and  that  it  is  the  first  duty  of  the  critic  to  recog- 
nize and  to  justify.  What  is  commonly  called 
4  subjective  criticism  '  may  be,  and  frequently  is, 
reading  of  the  most  delightful  sort,  but  it  is  not 
criticism  in  any  real  sense,  for  its  aim  is  the 
illumination  of  the  recesses  of  the  writer's  own 
mind,  rather  than  of  the  work  held  up  for  ex- 
amination. It  is  always  pleasant  to  follow  the 
play  of  a  finely  sensitive  intellect  about  some 
production  of  literary  art,  but  it  does  not  help 
us,  except  in  a  very  roundabout  way,  to  under- 
stand that  production  in  its  essence. 

The  function  of  opinion  in  criticism  is  pre- 
cisely" what  it  is  in  any  other  branch  of  science. 
It  assists  in  the  framing  of  hypotheses,  which 
may,  in  their  turn,  lead  us  by  tentative  paths  to 
the  truth.  But  to  make  of  opinion  an  end  in 
itself  is  a  procedure  as  grotesquely  inadequate  in 
aesthetics  as  it  would  be  in  physics.  What  would 
be  the  present  position  of  natural  science  if  its 
masters  had  remained  content  with  their  neat  hy- 
potheses, and  had  spared  themselves  the  arduous 
tasks  of  modification  by  experiment  and  of  ulti- 
mate verification  ?  Gravitation  and  evolution 
and  the  conservation  of  energy  were  once  matters 

14 


2io  Various  Views 

of  opinion,  with  no  binding  force  whatever.  If 
Newton  and  Darwin  and  Helmholtz  had  been 
content  to  put  these  things  forward  as  opinions, 
the  world  would  soon  have  forgotten  their  names. 
But  the  opinions  became  unquestionable  truths 
when  they  were  enforced  by  the  application  of  a 
rigorous  scientific  method,  and  we  honor  the  men 
who  established  them  for  the  very  reason  that 
those  men  knew  the  assertion  of  opinion  to  be 
but  the  beginning  of  knowledge. 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  the  science  of  aes- 
thetics offers  a  peculiarly  difficult  field  for  inves- 
tigation, and  that  critical  opinion  often  requires 
a  long  time  to  ripen  into  knowledge.  But  we 
must  not  for  that  reason  imagine  that  there  is 
any  finality  of  opinion,  that  its  character  is  other 
than  transitory  or  provisional.  The  subject  may 
be  illustrated  by  the  history  of  the  reputation  of 
every  great  writer  who  has  been  long  enough 
before  the  public  to  acquire  recognition  among 
the  fixed  stars  of  literature.  M.  Brunetiere  took 
Racine  for  the  special  illustration  of  this  thesis. 

'  M.  France  said:  "  We  know  only  ourselves.  What- 
ever you  are  trying  to  explain,  you  are  only  expounding 
yourself.  Shakespeare  alone  has  known  Shakespeare." 


A  Pedagogical  Prescription     211 

I  answered  M.  France  that  his  argument  that  we  cannot 
go  outside  of  ourselves  proves  too  much,  as  it  applies  to 
our  knowledge  of  the  physical  world  as  well  as  to  our 
knowledge  of  other  minds,  and  I  added  that  one  of  the 
men  who  knew  Victor  Hugo  least  was  Victor  Hugo. 
M.  Lemaitre  says:  "I  have  an  opinion  of  Racine.  You 
have  another.  Good,  that  makes  two.  Perhaps  there 
is  another;  that  makes  three.  There  may  be  an  infinity 
of  them.  Why  should  one  submit  to  another?  It  is 
much  more  amusing  to  have  three  opinions  of  Racine 
than  one,  still  more  amusing  to  have  an  infinite  num- 
ber." I  answered  M.  Lemaitre  that  no  doubt  there  were 
several  opinions  about  Racine,  but  that  he,  the  master, 
with  his  elegant,  "malicious,"  and  subtle  spirit,  exag- 
gerated the  differences  of  human  opinions.  It  is  certainly 
agreed  that  Racine  is  a  great  man,  that  he  is  a  higher 
dramatic  genius  than  Voltaire,  for  instance,  and  a  lower 
one  than  Corneille,  and  such  general  agreements  are  all 
we  need  for  our  kind  of  criticism." 

Here  the  discussion  ends,  as  far  as  Racine  is 
concerned  j  but  the  speaker  might  easily  have 
gone  on  to  show  that  the  position  of  Racine  is 
not  thus  fixed  merely  because  of  a  practically 
unanimous  consensus  of  opinion,  but  that  this 
consensus  itself  is  the  resultant  of  forces  by 
which  the  judgment  of  every  serious  critic  is 
more  or  less  consciously  determined,  that  it  fol- 
lows from  the  very  laws  of  literary  art. 

A  writer    in    the    New  York  'Nation'  has 


212  Various  Views 

undertaken  to  traverse  this  fundamental  doctrine 
of  M.  Brunetiere's  creed.  Taking  for  his  text  the 
very  paragraph  that  we  quoted  at  the  beginning 
of  the  present  article,  he  says  that  the  'analogy 
of  the  delicious  but  unwholesome  dishes  is  a  little 
misleading.'  He  then  goes  on  as  follows: 

« The  primary  object  of  eating  is  to  nourish  the  body, 
not  to  please  the  palate.  .  .  .  With  the  work  of  art,  on 
the  other  hand,  pleasingness,  in  the  broad  sense  of  the 
word,  is  the  final  test  of  excellence.  Its  usefulness  is  to 
please.  There  is  no  higher  court  of  appeal,  no  doctor 
with  exact  scientific  tests  who  has  a  right  to  pronounce 
it  good  though  disagreeable,  or  bad  though  acceptable 
to  the  taste.  It  is  true  that  the  moralist  often  arrogates 
to  himself  this  right,  but  he  is  only  a  fallible  brother 
expressing  an  opinion.  One  is  a  moralist  one's  self.' 

The  shallowness  of  this  reasoning  is  so  apparent 
that  it  need  not  be  taken  very  seriously.  It  is 
the  old  plea  for  hedonism  transferred  to  the  plane 
of  aesthetics,  and  is  defended  by  the  old  familiar 
logomachies.  We  are  quite  content  to  admit 
that  aesthetic  law  can  have  no  higher  claim  to 
authority  than  moral  law,  and  should  even  have 
been  willing  to  allow  that  the  moral  law  was  the 
better  defined  and  the  more  firmly  grounded  of 
the  two.  'One'  may  be  la  moralist  one's  self,' 
if  he  please,  but  the  consequences  of  this  sort  of 


A  Pedagogical  Prescription     213 

individualism,  if  put  into  practice,  are  likely  to 
be  distressing.  So,  in  assthetical  matters,  one 
may  be  a  critic  one's  self,  to  his  heart's  content, 
but  his  position,  if  he  set  up  his  private  judgment 
against  the  collective  judgment  of  the  best  in- 
formed in  a  succession  of  generations,  will  not 
prove  exactly  comfortable. 

But  our  individualist  critic  practically  abandons 
his  own  position  in  a  passage  that  soon  follows  : 

'  Of  course  this  reasoning  does  not  apply  to  the  young, 
whose  tastes  are  in  the  formative  stage,  or  to  the  men- 
tally indolent  who  have  never  reflected  on  their  own 
tastes.  In  the  interest  of  education  such  persons  may 
very  well  take  to  heart  the  maxim  to  distrust  their  own 
taste.  But  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  M.  Brune- 
tiere meant  to  offer  a  pedagogical  prescription." 

Is  it  not  ?  In  our  opinion,  that  is  precisely  what 
M.  Brunetiere  did  mean  to  offer.  Most  people 
are  either  young  or  mentally  indolent  as  far  as 
the  appreciation  of  literature  is  concerned.  To 
like  a  book  is  one  thing,  and  to  know  whether 
or  not  it  is  a  good  book,  and  why,  is  quite 
another  thing.  It  is  the  natural  man  whom  M. 
Brunetiere  seeks  to  warn,  not  the  man  of  trained 
perceptions  and  sympathies.  We  presume  that 
M.  Brunetiere  has  a  great  deal  of  confidence  in 


214  Various  Views 

his  own  likes  and  dislikes,  the  reason  being  that 
a  strenuous  process  of  analysis  has  transferred 
them  from  the  plane  of  prejudice  to  the  plane  of 
deliberate  and  reasoned  judgment.  And  it  is 
just  because  he  knows  so  amply  from  his  own 
experience  how  great  is  the  difference  between 
a  prejudice  and  a  judgment,  between  the  likes 
and  dislikes  of  the  natural  man  and  those  of  the 
critic  whose  historical  sense  has  been  developed 
by  the  widest  reading  and  who  has  learned  to 
substitute  scientific  method  for  empiricism,  it  is 
just  because  of  these  facts  that  he  offers  us  the 
'pedagogical  prescription'  so  much  needed  in 
this  country,  which  has  as  yet  produced  but  little 
critical  writing  in  the  high  and  true  sense  of  that 
term. 


Critic  as  Picker  and  Stealer     215 


THE  CRITIC  AS  PICKER  AND 
STEALER. 

CERTAIN  of  the  abuses  of  contemporary  period- 
ical criticism  are  energetically  set  forth  by  Mr. 
William  Knight  in  '  The  Nineteenth  Century.' 
Mr.  Knight's  paper  is  entitled  4  Criticism  as 
Theft,'  and  discusses  the  various  forms  of  filch- 
ing, more  or  less  disguised,  by  which  the  jour- 
nalistic hack  gets  the  attention  of  the  public, 
and  profits  at  the  expense  of  those  upon  whom 
he  preys.  The  author  sometimes  strains  a  point 
to  bring  the  abuse  with  which  he  is  at  the 
moment  occupied  under  the  category  of  robbery, 
as  when  he  says  that  the  author  who  makes  a 
valuable  contribution  to  literature  is  entitled  to  a 
reward,  and  adds :  l  If  the  return  of  that  reward 
is  prevented  by  capricious,  or  ignorant,  or  reck- 
less criticism,  the  critic  has  stolen  from  the 
author,  quite  as  truly  as  if  he  had  robbed  him  of 
his  purse.'  But  if  this  practice  is  not  theft,  it  is 
something  quite  as  bad,  and  deserves  all  the  cen- 


216  Various  Views 

sure  bestowed  upon  it.  *  The  robbery  of  a  just 
reputation  is  much  more  serious  than  is  the  theft 
of  money,  or  of  material  property ;  and  the  unjust 
praise  and  the  false  dispraise  of  the  critic  is  one 
of  the  worst  kinds  of  theft  that  this  world  has 
had  to  endure.'  Coleridge  took  much  the  same 
view  of  this  matter  when  he  thus  characterized 
critics  of  the  wantonly  malignant  type : 

'No  private  grudge  they  need,  no  personal  spite: 
The  viva  sectio  is  its  own  delight ! 
All  enmity,  all  envy,  they  disclaim, 
Disinterested  thieves  of  our  good  name: 
Cool,  sober  murderers  of  their  neighbor's  fame.' 

The  abuse  becomes  even  more  serious  when 
not  merely  ignorance  or  reckless  flippancy,  but 
partisanship  or  personal  bias  inspires  the  review 
of  some  book.  This  is  what  Mr.  Knight  says 
about  it:  'Many  a  review  —  philosophical,  po- 
litical, scientific,  theological,  and  literary  —  has 
hitherto  been  tainted  with  this  bias.  An  a  priori 
judgment  has  been  passed  on  the  merits  of  a 
book  which  the  critic  had  not  read.  It  has  been 
judged  by  its  title,  its  contents,  its  preface,  or  its 
author's  name.  Every  literary  man  must  have 
seen  scores  of  such  notices,  pert,  opinionative, 
shallow,  useless;  or, on  the  other  hand,  fulsome, 


Critic  as  Picker  and  Stealer     217 

and  therefore  worse  than  useless.'  We  may 
once  more  back  Mr.  Knight's  opinion  with  a 
passage  from  Coleridge  —  this  time  a  prose  selec- 
tion, but  for  that  none  the  less  vigorous  in  its 
impeachment.  'As  soon  as  the  critic  betrays 
that  he  knows  more  of  his  author  than  the 
author's  publications  could  have  told  him ;  as 
soon  as  from  this  more  intimate  knowledge, 
elsewhere  obtained,  he  avails  himself  of  the 
slightest  trait  against  the  author ;  his  censure 
instantly  becomes  personal  injury,  his  sarcasms 
personal  insults.  He  ceases  to  be  a  critic  and 
takes  on  him  the  most  contemptible  character  to 
which  a  rational  creature  can  be  degraded,  that 
of  a  gossip,  backbiter,  and  pasquillant :  but  with 
this  heavy  aggravation,  that  he  steals  the  unquiet, 
the  deforming  passions  of  the  world  into  the 
museum ;  into  the  very  place  which,  next  to  the 
chapel  and  oratory,  should  be  our  sanctuary  and 
secure  place  of  refuge  ;  offers  abominations  on 
the  altar  of  the  Muses,  and  makes  its  sacred 
paling  the  very  circle  in  which  he  conjures  up 
the  lying  and  profane  spirit.'  Anyone  who  has 
occasion  to  do  much  reading  in  contemporary 
criticism  may  often  discern  between  the  lines  of 


2i8  Various  Views 

a  review  some  such  syllogism  as  the  following : 
No  person  holding  certain  opinions  upon  politics, 
or  art,  or  religion,  can  possibly  say  anything 
worth  heeding  upon  any  subject  whatsoever. 
N.  N.  is  a  person  holding  such  opinions.  This 
book  of  his  upon,  let  us  say,  hydraulic  engineer- 
ing, must  therefore  receive  short  shrift  and  no 
mercy.  This  illustrates,  it  is  true,  an  exaggerated 
form  of  the  evil  under  discussion;  a  more  com- 
mon form  is  that  in  which  some  unimportant 
passages  in  the  book,  obnoxious  to  the  critic,  are 
singled  out  for  attack,  while  the  substance  of  the 
work  is  utterly  ignored. 

Another  form  of  current  4  criticism,'  which 
comes  nearer  than  those  as  yet  mentioned  to 
being  theft  in  the  literal  sense,  is  thus  described 
by  Mr.  Knight  :  c  A  critical  "  notice,"  written 
to  display  mere  deftness  or  nimbleness  of  wit, 
ingenious  repartee,  power  of  sarcasm  or  rejoinder, 
is  not  criticism  at  all.  Suppose  a  nimble-witted 
person  skims  a  book ;  turning  its  pages  in  a  list- 
less mood,  he  finds  some  information  that  is  new 
to  him.  He  notes  this,  and  goes  on  to  read 
more.  He  finds  some  errors,  and  then  proceeds 
to  use  the  information,  which  he  has  received 


Critic  as  Picker  and  Stealer     219 

from  the  book  itself,  against  its  author ;  just  as  a 
clever  surface  society-talker,  wholly  ignorant  of 
a  subject,  can  often  "  pick  the  brains  "  of  one 
who  knows  it,  while  he  is  speaking,  and  give  him 
back  in  a  torrent  of  verbosity  the  very  ideas  he 
was  slowly  and  modestly  expressing.'  There  is 
a  good  deal  of  this  sort  of  fraudulent  criticism 
afloat,  and  some  writers  acquire  a  critical  reputa- 
tion based  almost  wholly  upon  the  cleverness 
with  which  they  succeed  in  '  showing  off'  with 
the  subject  of  some  book  for  a  text.  The  pas- 
sage just  quoted  reminds  us  of  an  incident  re- 
cently related.  A  journalist  who  had  seen  a  good 
many  varieties  of  life  at  close  quarters  spent  an 
evening  with  an  eminent  novelist.  After  a  while, 
the  novelist  said  to  his  guest :  c  I  want  your  opinion 
of  a  story  I  have  just  written.'  The  story  was 
read,  and  approval  duly  expressed.  c  But,'  said 
the  journalist,  'the  substance  of  your  story  seems 
strangely  familiar  to  me.'  '  Yes,'  replied  the 
novelist,  4  you  told  me  the  story  yourself.' 

Perhaps  the  only  sort  of  '  criticism '  that  may 
in  the  strictest  sense  be  accounted  theft  is  that 
in  which  the  reviewer  relies  mainly  upon  the 
reviews  already  published  by  others  of  his  craft. 


220  Various  Views 

To  parade  as  one's  own  the  opinions  of  others, 
to  catch  the  drift  of  criticism  as  expounded  in 
the  more  authoritative  journals,  reproducing  its 
leading  ideas  in  slightly  altered  form,  is  a  practice 
for  which  no  defence  is  possible.  The  critic  who 
takes  his  profession  seriously  will,  of  course, 
carefully  refrain  from  reading  what  others  have 
said  of  a  book  until  he  has  framed  his  own  inde- 
pendent judgment  of  the  work  in  question,  and 
even  then  will  have  to  be  constantly  on  his  guard 
to  resist  the  natural  impulse  to  make  his  dicta 
conform  to  those  which  he  cannot  keep  from 
filtering  into  his  consciousness  in  a  hundred  in- 
sidious ways.  Even  the  shifting  currents  of  public 
opinion  upon  the  larger  aspects  of  literary  art  are 
a  constant  source  of  danger  to  the  critic,  however 
conscientious  he  may  be.  When  current  literature 
shows  a  distinct  trend  toward  realism,  or  roman- 
ticism, or  didacticism,  or  sexualism,  it  is  difficult 
to  avoid  being  swayed  by  the  movement,  however 
fixed  may  be  the  critic's  canons,  and  however 
stoutly  he  may  be  prepared  to  do  battle  for  the 
lasting  as  against  the  ephemeral.  We  still  get  a 
good  deal  of  bell-wether  guidance,  even  from  the 
best-intentioned,  for  critics  are  as  gregarious  as 


Critic  as  Picker  and  Stealer    221 

other  people,  and  find  it  quite  as  hard  to  run 
counter  to  the  prevailing  literary  fashions. 

With  one  part  of  Mr.  Knight's  argument  we 
are  unable  to  agree.  He  condemns  the  review 
which  is  frankly  descriptive  and  extractive  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  a  theft  from  both  author  and 
public  ;  from  the  former  because  it  injures  his 
sales,  from  the  latter  because  it  deprives  of  the 
opportunity  of  knowing,  4  in  its  integrity,'  what 
the  author  has  to  say.  It  is  a  curious  logical 
twist  that  can  find  robbery  in  the  act  of  summar- 
izing a  book  for  readers  many  of  whom  are  too 
busy  to  get  at  it  in  any  other  way.  As  far  as 
our  observation  goes,  such  />n?m- writing  stimu- 
lates rather  than  retards  the  sale  of  the  books 
selected  for  treatment;  the  persons  who  are  con- 
tent to  accept  the  part  for  the  whole  are  mostly 
those  who  would  never  dream  of  purchasing  the 
book  concerned,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
number  of  those  who  are  by  a  skilful  summary 
made  curious  to  know  the  book,  and  actually 
purchase  it,  make  up  many  times  over  for  the 
few  who  might  have  become  purchasers  had  it 
not  been  for  the  friendly  offices  of  the  reviewer 
in  selecting  for  them  enough  of  its  contents  to 


222  Various  Views 

satisfy  their  curiosity.  So  far  are  we  from  dep- 
recating this  form  of  review,  that  we  wish  there 
might  be  a  great  deal  more  of  it.  More,  perhaps, 
than  from  any  other  cause,  popular  criticism 
suffers  from  the  feeling  of  the  critic  that,  however 
lacking  in  knowledge,  he  is  bound  to  take  the 
judicial  attitude,  and,  instead  of  giving  his  readers 
an  idea  of  what  the  book  is  really  like,  he  must 
express  a  decided  opinion  upon  its  merits.  As  it 
is  obviously  impossible  for  the  newspaper  re- 
viewer, called  upon  to  deal  with  books  upon  all 
sorts  of  subjects,  to  have  an  opinion  of  any  value 
concerning  most  of  them,  it  would  be  a  decided 
improvement  for  him  to  remain  content  with  the 
descriptive  summary  that  almost  any  fairly  intel- 
ligent person  can  make.  In  other  words,  the 
work  of  judical  and  authoritative  criticism  should 
be  left  to  the  reviews  that  can  command  the 
services  of  hundreds  of  specialists,  and  are  known 
to  entrust  to  competent  hands  the  books  sent  to 
such  reviews  for  examination. 


A  Word  for  Minor  Poetry     223 


A  WORD  FOR  MINOR  POETRY 

THE  flood  of  verse  that  is  produced  in  these 
latter  days,  and  that  somehow  finds  its  way  into 
print,  offers  a  subject  for  serious  reflection  to 
the  student  of  literary  phenomena.  Nothing  like 
it  was  ever  known  before,  since  there  never 
before  was  a  period  in  which  mastery  of  the  ele- 
mentary technique  of  verse  was  so  common  a 
possession  among  workers  with  the  pen.  Every 
now  and  then  we  learn  with  surprise  that  some 
famous  scholar,  whose  reputation  rests  upon 
strictly  prosaic  achievements,  has  often  had  re- 
course to  the  composition  of  poetry  as  a  recrea- 
tion, and  has  long  been  dabbling  in  the  art  of 
rhyme  and  metre  unknown  to  any  but  his  most 
intimate  associates.  A  few  years  ago,  Mr. 
Lecky  published  a  volume  of  verse  that  de- 
lighted all  of  its  readers  except  those  who  based 
their  sapient  judgment  upon  the  a  priori  grounds 
that  so  great  a  historian  could  not  possibly  have 
the  poetical  gift ;  and  it  was  still  more  recently 


224  Various  Views 

that  a  posthumous  volume  by  the  late  Professor 
Romanes  showed  us  that  the  scientific  habit  of 
thought  by  no  means  precludes  possession  of  the 
sympathies  and  the  sensibilities  that  are  requisite 
for  the  production  of  very  acceptable  verse. 
Even  the  dry  light  in  which  the  world  appeared 
to  a  man  of  Huxley's  temperament  did  not  pre- 
vent him  from  penning  one  of  the  most  striking 
of  the  many  poetical  tributes  evoked  by  the 
death  of  Tennyson.  Then,  besides  the  occa- 
sional men  of  eminence  in  other  intellectual 
fields  who  from  time  to  time  surprise  us  in  this 
agreeable  way,  there  are  the  writers  —  a  very 
numerous  host  —  who  have  no  other  distinction 
at  all,  but  who  every  year  swell  the  list  of  those 
who  must  be  reckoned  with  when  we  estimate 
the  choral  forces  of  English  song,  far  removed 
as  they  may  be  in  both  aim  and  achievement 
from  the  select  ranks  of  the  soloists. 

The  existence  of  this  choir  invisible  —  that  is, 
invisible  to  the  gaze  of  the  general  public  —  is  a 
fact  persistently  borne  in  upon  the  consciousness 
of  the  closer  student  of  contemporary  literature. 
The  reviewer  of  books,  in  particular,  whose 
task  it  is  to  make  some  sort  of  assessment  of 


A  Word  for  Minor  Poetry     225 

from  one  to  two  hundred  volumes  of  new  verse 
every  year,  is  acutely  aware  of  this  multitude  of 
singing  voices,  and,  unless  he  be  hopelessly  com- 
mitted to  a  standard  of  judgment  impossible  to 
apply  in  such  cases,  is  bound,  in  simple  fairness, 
to  recognize  the  sweet  and  sincere  quality  of 
many  of  the  notes  sounded,  although  he  knows 
well  enough  that  these  notes  will  never  penetrate 
very  far  into  the  popular  consciousness.  If  he 
be  honest,  his  attitude  toward  these  bards  strug- 
gling to  make  themselves  heard  will  not  be  in- 
spired by  a  fine  Horatian  scorn  of  poetical 
mediocrity  so  much  as  by  the  feeling  that  a  good 
deal  may  be  said  in  behalf  of  poetry  that  is  not 
too  bright  and  good  for  human  nature's  daily 
food.  There  are  hours  —  and  many  of  them  — 
in  our  lives  when  we  are  content  to  browse  upon 
the  meadowlands  of  song,  and  leave  the  peaks 
unsealed.  Even  the  poets  that  dwell  upon  the 
lowest  slopes  of  Parnassus  may  offer  some  food 
for  our  spiritual  sustenance. 

The  term  'minor  poetry'  is  of  comparatively 
recent  origin,  and  indicates  a  definite  realization 
of  the  fact  that  there  is  a  difference,  not  of  degree 
merely,  but  of  kind,  between  the  singer  of  the 


226  Various  Views 

age  or  the  race  and  the  warbler  of  the  hour  or 
the  coterie.  The  distinction  between  the  two  is 
reasonably  well  marked,  although  in  the  nature 
of  the  case  no  hard  and  fast  line  of  demarcation 
can  be  drawn.  There  are  always  some  poets 
'on  promotion,'  as  it  were,  poets  whose  place 
we  cannot  quite  determine  because  of  the  heated 
controversies  occasioned  by  their  work.  Whit- 
man, for  example,  was  for  many  years  in  this 
condition  of  suspense,  and  now,  long  after  his 
death,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  say  whether  he  is 
a  minor  or  a  major  poet.  Mr.  Kipling  may  be 
taken  as  a  living  illustration  of  this  uncertainty 
of  classification.  Then  there  are  occasionally 
mute  inglorious  Miltons,  as  far  as  the  larger  pub- 
lic is  concerned,  who  nevertheless  are  both  vocal 
and  glorious  in  the  estimation  of  the  cultured 
few.  But  the  distinction  between  major  and 
minor  poets  is  worth  making,  in  spite  of  the 
difficulty  of  dealing  with  a  few  exceptional  repu- 
tations, and  it  is  coming  to  be  seen  more  and 
more  clearly  that  the  minor  poet  has  a  mission 
and  an  utterance  of  his  own  ;  or,  to  supply  a  con- 
crete illustration,  that  Mr.  Dobson  is  in  no  sense 


A  Word  for  Minor  Poetry     227 

a  rival  of  Mr.  Swinburne,  but  rather  a  worker 
in  different  materials,  shaping  them  to  different, 
and,  in  a  way,  to  equally  successful  ends. 

If  this  position  be  well  taken,  it  will  follow 
that  there  is  no  reproach  in  the  title  of  minor 
poet.  We  do  not  think  slightingly  of  the  blue- 
bird because  it  is  not  an  eagle,  nor  do  we  wrong 
the  singer  of  simple  lyrics  because  he  has  been 
denied  the  power  to  fashion  epics  or  dramatic 
tragedies.  When  we 

1  Read  from  some  humbler  poet, 

Whose  songs  gushed  from  his  heart, 
As  showers  from  the  clouds  of  summer, 
Or  tears  from  the  eyelids  start,' 

we  are  not  justified  in  measuring  him  by  the 
standard  of  Milton  and  Shakespeare,  but  should 
rather  ask  :  Does  he  accomplish  what  he  has 
sought  to  accomplish;  is  there  a  natural  balance 
between  gift  and  utterance ;  has  he  power  to 
stir  the  springs  of  emotion  at  his  own  spiritual 
level  and  upon  his  own  terms  ?  Some  years 
ago,  Mr.  Slason  Thompson  published  a  collec- 
tion of  the  minor  poetry  that,  in  newspaper  and 
magazine,  had  appealed  to  him  for  a  score  of 


228  Various  Views 

years  past.  He  styled  his  collection  4  The 
Humbler  Poets,'  and  was  in  consequence,  we 
believe,  the  recipient  of  more  than  one  indignant 
remonstrance  from  versifiers  who  thought  them- 
selves anything  but  humble.  But  the  very  fact 
that  a  '  humble '  or  minor  poet  should  be  too 
proud  to  accept  the  ascription,  proves,  as  far  as 
it  proves  anything,  that  the  remonstrant  does  not 
deserve  the  title  of  poet  in  any  sense,  that  his 
aim  has  been  so  far  mistaken  as  to  make  his 
work  relatively  a  failure. 

Speaking  of  the  l  hedgerow  poems  '  of  his  col- 
lection, Mr.  Thompson  said  fittingly  :  c  There 
come  hours  to  every  lover  of  poetry  when  he 
wishes  for  "some  simple  and  heartfelt  lay,"  some- 
thing that  shall  speak  from  out  a  mind  feeling 
the  everyday  cares  of  life  amid  the  multitude, 
and  not  from  the  heights  to  which  the  masters 
41  proudly  stooped."'  Something  of  this  feeling, 
expressed  with  more  of  elaboration,  and  based 
upon  more  broadly  philosophical  grounds,  may 
be  found  in  the  preface  to  l  A  Treasury  of  Minor 
British  Poetry  '  edited  by  Mr.  J.  Churton  Collins. 
Here  we  are  told  that : 


A  Word  for  Minor  Poetry     229 

'  It  is  in  the  minor  poetry  of  an  age  that  contempo- 
rary life  impresses  itself  most  deeply,  and  finds  perhaps 
its  most  faithful  mirror.  In  the  great  masterpieces  of 
poetry  that  life  is  presented  in  an  ideal  light,  and  in 
relation  to  ideal  truth.  What  belongs  to  a  time  is  sub- 
ordinated to  what  belongs  to  all  time,  what  is  actual  to 
what  is  typical,  what  is  local  to  what  is  universal. 
There  is,  moreover,  in  genius  of  the  higher  order  a 
dominant,  a  despotic  individuality  which  tempers  and 
assimilates  the  material  on  which  it  works  to  its  own 
potent  idiosyncracy.' 

The  author  then  goes  on  more  specifically  to 
say  that  in  Langland,  not  Chaucer, '  the  England 
of  Edward  III.  becomes  fully  articulate,'  and 
that  neither  Spenser,  nor  Shakespeare,  nor  Milton, 
completely  reflects  the  England  of  the  period  in 
which  he  lived. 

1  It  is  otherwise  with  the  minor  poetry  of  any  particu- 
lar era.  Here  for  the  eclecticism,  if  we  may  so  express 
it,  of  the  great  masters  the  age  itself  finds  a  tongue. 
For  the  voice  which  speaks  in  these  poets  is  the  voice  of 
the  nation,  of  the  courtier,  of  the  statesman  and  man 
of  affairs,  of  the  scholar  and  litterateur,  of  the  Church- 
man, of  the  man  of  pleasure,  of  the  busy  citizen,  of 
the  recluse,  of  the  soldier  and  sailor,  of  the  peasant,  of 
the  mechanic,  and  of  women  of  all  classes  and  of  all 
callings.  What  is  moulding,  what  is  coloring,  what  is 
in  any  way  affecting  the  life  of  the  time  has  its  record 
here.  Is  the  pulse  of  the  nation  quickened  or  depressed; 


230  Various  Views 

are  imagination  and  passion,  or  fancy  and  sentiment,  or 
reason  and  reflection  in. the  ascendant,  is  the  prevailing 
tendency  in  the  direction  of  simplicity  and  nature,  or 
towards  ingenuity  and  art,  is  the  moral  tone  in  society 
high  or  low,  is  the  period  a  period  of  progress,  or  of 
decadence,  or  of  transition, — the  answer  to  all  this  may 
be  found,  and  found  in  detail,  in  our  collections  of  minor 
poetry.' 


Newspaper  Science  231 


NEWSPAPER  SCIENCE. 

WALTER  BAGEHOT",  in  one  of  his  letters,  speaks 
of  somebody's  books  as  containing  ca  pale 
whitey-brown  substance,  which  people  who  don't 
think  take  for  thought,  but  it  isn't.'  All  of  us 
who  do  much  miscellaneous  reading  in  current 
literature  must  come  to  be  painfully  familiar  with 
the  substance  thus  described,  and  to  wonder,  on 
the  one  hand,  how  it  can  be  evolved  from  minds 
that  seem  to  work  normally  in  the  everyday 
relations  of  life,  and,  on  the  other,  how  it  can 
prove  acceptable  to  the  mental  palate  of  so 
many  readers,  for  many  readers  there  must  be 
to  account  for  its  voluminous  and  continued 
production.  Such  an  account  of  the  vagaries  of 
intellection  as  is  given  by  John  Fiske,  in  his  essay 
upon  various  kinds  of  c  cranks,'  is  an  amusing 
thing  to  read,  of  course,  but  in  another  aspect — 
an  aspect  that  persists  in  the  field  of  vision  after 
the  humorous  one  has  faded  —  its  effect  is  sad- 
dening, almost  disheartening.  Cling  as  tena- 


232  Various  Views 

ciously  as  we  may  to  a  belief  in  the  essential 
rationality  of  the  human  intellect,  our  faith  suf- 
fers many  a  rude  shock  when  we  see  one  form 
after  another  of  irrationalism  sweeping  over  the 
public  mind,  threatening  almost  to  its  founda- 
tions the  empire  of  logic.  Illustrations  of  this 
power  of  the  irrational  to  set  intellects  awry 
abound  on  every  hand,  and  may  be  drawn  alike 
from  great  things  and  from  small.  The  irra- 
tionality of  imagining  that  our  conduct  as  a 
nation  toward  the  people  of  the  Philippine 
Islands  can  be  made  to  square  with  the  prin- 
ciples upon  which  we  have  hitherto  shaped  our 
national  life  and  carved  out  our  success  is  of  a 
piece  with  the  irrationality  that  claimed  the  year 
1900  for  the  first  of  a  new  century  instead  of  the 
last  of  an  old  one.  The  former  is  a  matter  of 
grave  import  to  countless  millions  of  people ;  the 
latter  is  a  belated  bit  of  scholasticism ;  both  to 
the  psychologist  are  interesting  examples  of  the 
way  in  which  pure  reason  gets  flouted  when  it 
runs  counter  either  to  a  passion  or  a  whim. 

There  was  a  time,  not  very  long  ago,  when 
we  hoped  great  things  from  our  rapidly  expand- 
ing schemes  of  education,  which  were  to  make 


Newspaper  Science  233 

for  rationality  in  so  many  ways.  The  teaching 
of  science,  particularly,  was  to  raise  up  a  new 
generation  with  a  new  mental  habit.  The 
preachers  of  this  gospel  said  that  all  our  intel- 
lectual ailments  proceeded  from  the  fatal  defect 
in  educational  methods  that  made  words  rather 
than  things  the  chief  object  of  attention.  Some- 
thing analogous  to  the  degeneracy  of  inbreeding 
was  the  consequence  of  the  manner  in  which 
each  new  generation  was  content  to  deal  mainly 
with  the  merely  verbal  inheritance  of  the  past, 
instead  of  benefitting  by  a  vivifying  contact  with 
the  concrete  facts  of  nature.  Science  was  to 
change  all  this,  to  keep  men  in  constant  touch 
with  life,  leaving  the  dead  past  to  bury  its  dead, 
and  henceforth  to  base  all  our  convictions  upon 
the  solid  foundations  of  observation  instead  of 
the  uncertain  indications  of  authority.  Well, 
science  has  had  pretty  much  its  own  way  in 
education  for  the  past  quarter-century,  yet  the 
generation  that  it  has  helped  to  train  seems 
hardly  less  prone  to  superstition  than  were  those 
that  preceded.  Such  mockeries  of  the  scientific 
spirit  as  parade  under  the  names  of  palmistry  and 
psychical  research  and  4  Christian  '  science,  and 


234  Various  Views 

countless  other  manifestations  of  the  unregulated 
intellect,  rear  their  heads  unabashed,  and  bear 
witness  to  the  persistence  of  the  irrational  even 
under  conditions  that  would  seem  the  most  ad- 
verse to  the  prosperity  of  such  aberrations  of  the 
intelligence. 

This  flourishing  of  the  unscientific  in  what  is 
commonly  supposed  to  be  peculiarly  the  age  of 
science  is  doubtless  the  result  of  instincts  too 
deeply  seated  in  the  human  consciousness  to  be 
readily  accessible  to  the  appeal  of  educational 
and  other  rationalizing  influences.  Yet  we  can- 
not wholly  acquit  these  influences  themselves  of 
all  responsibility  for  a  state  of  things  so  discred- 
itable to  human  intelligence.  Our  educational 
methods  must  somehow  be  defective,  must  fail 
in  seriousness  of  application  if  not  in  grasp  of 
the  problem  to  be  coped  with,  while  those  ancil- 
lary agencies  upon  which  education  has  a  right 
to  count  seem  to  be  far  removed  indeed  from 
any  adequate  realization  of  their  high  mission. 
While  the  church,  and  the  political  party,  and 
the  industrial  organization,  and  the  publisher  of 
books,  and  the  various  kinds  of  purveyors  of 
entertainment  to  the  community,  are  all  in  part 


Newspaper  Science  235 

answerable  for  this  failure  to  realize  the  oppor- 
tunities offered  them  to  contribute  to  intellectual 
advancement,  the  most  conspicuous  offender  in 
this  respect  is  that  type  of  the  modern  newspaper, 
far  too  frequently  met  with,  which  panders  to  the 
lower  intellectual  instincts  quite  as  noticeably  as 
to  the  lower  social  and  moral  instincts  of  its 
readers.  We  wish  to  emphasize  this  distinction 
just  at  present  because,  although  many  voices 
have  been  raised  to  protest  against  the  low  moral 
tone  of  the  greater  part  of  contemporary  journal- 
ism, the  fact  that  its  intellectual  tone  is  equally 
low  has  failed  to  attract  the  attention  due  it  as  a 
commentary  upon  our  boasted  success  in  carrying 
on  the  work  of  popular  education. 

Mr.  J.  L.  Larned,  speaking  before  the  libra- 
rians at  Cleveland  a  few  years  ago,  made  use  of 
these  impressive  and  well-weighed  words  : 

'  The  common  school,  making  possible  readers,  and 
the  newspaper  inviting  them  to  read,  arrived  together  at 
a  conjunction  which  might  have  seemed  to  be  a  happy 
miracle  for  the  universalizing  of  culture  in  the  western 
world.  The  opportunity  which  came  then  into  the 
hands  of  the  conductors  of  the  news  press,  with  the  new 
powers  that  had  been  given  them,  has  never  been  paral- 
leled in  human  history.  They  might  have  been  gar- 
deners of  Eden  and  planters  of  A  new  paradise  on  the 


236  Various  Views 

earth,  for  its  civilization  was  put  into  their  hands  to  be 
made  what  they  would  have  it  to  be.  If  it  could  have 
been  possible  then  to  deal  with  newspapers  as  other 
educational  agencies  are  dealt  with  ;  to  invest  them  with 
definite  moral  responsibilities  to  the  public  ;  to  take 
away  from  them  their  commercial  origin  and  their  mer- 
cenary motive  ;  to  inspire  them  with  disinterested  aims  ; 
to  endow  them  as  colleges  are  endowed  ;  to  man  them 
for  their  work  as  colleges  are  manned,  with  learning  and 
tried  capacity  in  the  editorial  chairs  —  if  that  could  have 
been  possible,  what  imaginable  degree  of  common  culture 
might  not  Europe  and  America  by  this  time  be  approach- 
ing ?  As  it  is,  we  are  to-day  disputing  and  striving  to 
explain  to  one  another  a  condition  of  society  which 
shames  all  who  think  of  it.' 

We  know  now  that  these  things  were  not  pos- 
sible, although  we  believe  that  they  may  yet 
become  possible,  and  it  is  just  because  we  hold 
this  belief  that  it  seems  important  to  emphasize 
as  frequently  and  as  sharply  as  we  may  the  con- 
trast between  what  our  newspapers  are  doing  for 
education  in  the  true  sense  and  what  they  might 
so  easily  take  it  upon  themselves  to  do.  And 
in  saying  these  hard  truths  of  a  perverted  news- 
paper press,  we  wish  to  give  the  frankest  recog- 
nition to  those  journals,  found  here  and""  there, 
whose  aims,  both  intellectual  and  moral,  are  en- 
tirely creditable  to  their  publishers,  and  which 


Newspaper  Science  237 

are  particularly  instructive  because  they  indicate 
the  course  that  others  might  take  to  the  immense 
benefit  of  their  prestige,  and  not  impossibly  also 
to  the  benefit  of  their  subscription  and  adver- 
tising accounts.  While  it  is  true  that  some  of 
the  greatest  commercial  successes  in  American 
journalism  have  been  gained  by  newspapers  of 
the  most  debased  and  ruffianly  description,  it  is 
also  true  that  the  most  dignified  examples  of  our 
journalism  have  proved,  if  not  the  most  success- 
ful, at  least  successful  enough  to  gratify  any 
reasonable 'ambition.  The  choice  by  no  means 
lies  between  success  at  the  price  of  decency  and 
failure  with  the  preservation  of  self-respect. 

In  order  to  provide  some  sort  of  justification 
for  the  title  given  to  these  remarks,  we  must 
turn  from  the  foregoing  abstract  considerations 
to  something  in  the  nature  of  concrete  illustra- 
tion. We  all  know  that  'newspaper  science'  is 
a  term  of  reproach,  and  the  reason  is  not  far  to 
seek.  The  same  spirit  of  sensationalism  that 
leads  to  the  detailed  chronicling  of  a  prize  fight 
or  a  criminal  trial  leads  also  to  the  exploitation 
of  every  sort  of  mental  vagary  that  cloaks  itself 
with  the  -respectable  name  of  science.  Whether 


238  Various  Views 

it  be  a  belated  alchemist  who  claims  to  have  dis- 
covered the  stone  of  the  philosophers,  or  an 
exponent  of  the  newest  and  most  extravagant 
occultism,  whether  it  be  a  palmist  or  a  *  mind- 
reader  '  or  a  '  faith-healer/  whether  it  be  a 
Shaconian  or  a  circle-squarer,  or  a  pyramid  en- 
thusiast or  a  direful  prophet  with  a  tale  of  the 
coming  destruction  of  the  world,  there  is  no  per- 
son so  scientifically  impossible  that  he  cannot 
get  into  the  newspapers,  and  enlist  their  services 
in  the  propaganda  of  his  pet  eccentricity  or  insane 
delusion.  He  can  get  himself  taken  seriously,  or 
at  least  semi-seriously,  and  that  is  what  he  wants. 
For  all  such  persons  notoriety  is  the  very  breath 
of  life,  and  the  newspapers  provide  it  without 
scruple,  because  in  so  doing  they  can  at  the 
same  time  provide  the  weak-minded  section  of 
their  readers  with  a  new  variety  of  mental  dissi- 
pation. The  most  incredible  inanities,  the  most 
preposterous  notions,  the  most  meaningless 
pseudo-science  are  thus  given  a  currency  that  is 
denied  even  to  the  genuine  achievements  of 
investigation. 

This  work  is  done,  moreover,  in  so  blundering 
and  hap-hazard  a  way  that  the  spirit  of  sensa- 


Newspaper  Science  239 

tionalism  is  not  enough  completely  to  account 
for  it.  There  is  usually  in  addition  some  admix- 
ture of  an  ignorance  so  dense  that  one  can  only 
marvel  at  the  number  of  essentially  uneducated 
people  who  by  some  mysterious  dispensation  get 
their  lucubrations  into  print.  We  recall  a  news- 
paper article  published  in  Chicago  some  years 
ago  which  undertook  to  instruct  a  confiding 
public  upon  the  subject  of  ozone.  The  account 
was  a  brief  one,  but  it  contrived  to  include  state- 
ments to  the  effect  that  the  true  nature  of  ozone 
was  not  fully  understood,  that  it  got  its  name 
4  from  the  peculiar  odor,  which  resembles  that 
produced  when  a  succession  of  electric  sparks 
are  passed  through  the  air,'  that  Faraday  consid- 
ered it  l  identical  with  the  medicinal  quality  in 
electricity,'  that  the  effect  of  inhaling  it  was  very 
c exhiliatory,'  and  that  M.  Jules  Verne  had  once 
told  an  interesting  c  story  of  the  wild  doings  in  a 
village  which  became  accidentally  permeated ' 
with  ozone.  This  illustration  is  trivial  enough, 
no  doubt,  but  it  is  so  extremely  typical  of  the 
sort  of  c  newspaper  science '  we  are  concerned 
with  that  it  will  serve  as  well  as  another.  The 
wonder  of  it  is,  of  course,  that  any  person  so 


240  Various  Views 

absolutely  ignorant  of  elementary  chemistry 
should  write,  and  that  any  newspaper  should 
print,  so  astonishing  a  farrago  of  misinformation. 
One  more  illustration  must  suffice  us.  An 
improved  method  for  the  liquefaction  of  air  has 
recently  attracted  much  attention,  and  the  news- 
papers have  naturally  taken  it  up.  The  same 
newspaper  which  was  responsible  for  the  remark- 
able statements  about  ozone  to  which  reference 
was  just  made  quotes  the  inventor  as  l  stating 
that  with  three  gallons  of  the  liquid  he  had  re- 
peatedly made  ten  gallons,  and  that  he  could  go 
on  doing  so  for  any  length  of  time.'  c  There  is 
no  reason  to  doubt  this  assertion '  is  the  astonish- 
ing editorial  comment  upon  this  astonishing  state- 
ment. Now  if  this  means  that  the  energy  liberated 
from  the  aerification  of  a  certain  quantity  of  the 
liquefied  air  is  sufficient,  without  any  auxiliary 
energy,  to  reduce  a  still  larger  quantity  to  the 
liquid  form,  it  is  the  flattest  of  impossibilities,  for 
it  denies  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of 
energy,  which  is  the  fundamental  principle  upon 
which  all  physical  science  rests.  A  schoolboy 
less  omniscient  than  Macaulay's  should  know 
such  a  statement  to  be  impossible,  and  he  should 


Newspaper  Science  241 

know  it  with  a  firmness  of  conviction  that 
should  make  him  willing  to  stake  his  life  upon 
it.  If  a  schoolboy  can  get  through  a  common 
high  school  education  without  knowing  this  and 
other  universal  principles  of  the  same  order  there 
must  have  been  something  radically  wrong  about 
his  instruction.  And  it  is  because  we  are  inclined 
to  think  that  there  often  is  something  radically 
wrong  about  the  teaching  of  elementary  science, 
that  such  teaching  is  too  apt  to  make  informa- 
tion rather  than  intellectual  discipline  its  chief 
aim,  that  we  have  wished  to  provide  this  moral 
with  the  sharpest  possible  of  points. 


242  Various  Views 


THE  DECAY  OF  AMERICAN 
JOURNALISM. 

THERE  is  something  touching  in  a  '  Letter  to 
Editors  and  Journalists'  put  forth  by  the  l  Balti- 
more Yearly  Meeting  of  Friends.'  It  is  an  appeal 
for  the  purification  of  the  newspaper  press,  and 
the  faith  must  indeed  be  abundant  that  imagines 
a  few  soft  words  sufficient  to  arouse  in  the  breast 
of  that  hardened  offender  against  decency  the 
remorseful  twinges  of  conscience.  If  the  aver- 
age American  journalist  ever  had  such  a  thing  as 
a  conscience,  it  was  killed  long  ago,  and  its  place 
taken  by  a  simulacrum  of  hypocritical  accent 
and  leering  mien.  This  effective  modern  sub- 
stitute for  a  conscience  in  journalism  has  discov- 
ered the  secret  of  preaching  virtue  in  such  a 
manner  that  it  nowise  interferes  with  the  practice 
of  vice.  It  will,  for  example,  devote  one  edito- 
rial column  to  deploring  the  brutal  tendencies  of 
the  age,  and  fill  twenty  columns  of  the  same 
issue  with  a  highly-colored  account,  frorn  all 


American  Journalism          243 

possible  points  of  view,  of  the  latest  event  in 
the  annals  of  the  prize-ring.  It  will  take  high 
moral  ground  upon  the  evils  of  partisanship,  and 
at  the  same  time  gloss  over  the  corruption  of 
the  party  in  whose  interests  its  own  are  wrapped 
up.  It  will  profess  to  regret  —  oh,  so  deeply  — 
that  the  dear  public  has  developed  so  insatiate 
an  appetite  for  scandalous  sensations  and  vulgar 
personalities,  and  will  at  the  same  time  furnish  a 
large  staff  of  young  men  with  muck-rakes  of 
the  most  approved  pattern,  and  direct  them  to 
gather  in  as  many  sensations  and  personalities  as 
they  can  discover  or  invent,  in  order  that  the 
aforesaid  dear  public  may  not  be  deprived  of  its 
customary  diet,  and  the  sales  of  its  favorite  family 
newspaper  show  no  symptoms  of  a  decline. 

Revolutions  in  taste  and  in  the  standards  of 
public  decency  are  no  more  to  be  made  with 
rose-water  than  are  revolutions  in  sterner  fields 
thus  to  be  accomplished.  Nothing  short  of  the 
energetic  measures  of  a  Hercules  will  suffice  to 
cleanse  the  Augean  stables  of  the  4  new  journal- 
ism,' and  we  can  fancy  something  of  the  derision 
with  which  the  rose-water  phrases  of  the  Balti- 
more friends  will  be  received  by  the  men  who 


244  Various  Views 

have  been  chiefly  instrumental  in  making  the 
American  newspaper  so  great  a  national  calamity. 
4  We  appeal  to  you,  as  Editors,'  so  runs  the 
'Letter'  from  the  good  women  of  the  Baltimore 
Meeting,  *  for  a  reticence  in  the  detail  of  crime 
and  scandal, —  that  the  purely  sensational  shall 
be  excluded,  that  pictures  and  advertisements, 
both  personal  and  medical,  which  so  insidiously 
lead  the  innocent  and  unsuspecting  from  the  path 
of  virtue,  shall  find  no  place  in  your  columns. 
We  especially  ask  your  influence  in  raising  the 
moral  tone  of  the  edition  issued  as  the  "  Sunday 
paper,"  till  it  becomes  a  power  for  good  among 
the  people.'  This  appeal  is  reiterated,  with  some 
variation  of  phrase,  in  a  l  Report '  which  accom- 
panies the  4  Letter,'  and  the  pleasant  hope  is  ex- 
pressed that  in  our  journalism  henceforth  c  fairer, 
lovelier  paths  be  traced,  leading  to  virtue  and  to 
hope.' 

We  fear  that  all  the  ears  that  such  an  appeal 
as  this  seeks  to  reach  will  be  found  deaf  to  its 
gentle  pleadings.  The  foul  sheets  at  which  it 
aims  will  continue  to  do  lip-service  to  whatsoever 
things  are  good  and  pure,  while  disregarding  in 
practice  every  consideration  of  decency.  The 


American  Journalism          245 

effective  arguments  for  purified  journalism  will 
be  of  a  very  different  sort,  and  indications  are  not 
wanting  that  such  arguments  are  about  to  be 
employed.  The  ringing  words  of  the  late  Gov- 
ernor Altgeld,  setting  forth  the  imperative  demand 
for  legislation  that  will  really  protect  men  from 
wanton  assaults  upon  their  character  by  practi- 
cally irresponsible  editors,  found  an  echo  in  many 
minds,  and  the  bills  recently  introduced  into  the 
law-making  bodies  of  Illinois  and  New  York, 
making  it  an  offence  to  publish  portraits  without 
the  consent  of  the  persons  portrayed,  have  taken 
a  step  in  the  right  direction.  Even  the  recent  New 
York  bill  proposing  a  press-censorship,  while 
unwise  in  principle,  has  made  a  good  many  peo- 
ple seriously  ask  themselves  whether  an  excessive 
measure  of  restriction  might  not  be  preferable  to 
the  excess  of  license  which  now  characterizes 
the  conduct  of  our  newspapers.  c  Freedom  of 
the  press '  has  always  been,  and  ought  always  to 
remain,  a  watchword  of  much  meaning  to  any 
liberty-loving  people,  but  its  force  may  be  greatly 
weakened  by  such  abuses  of  that  freedom  as  are 
daily  illustrated  by  the  newspapers  of  our  chief 
cities.  Still  more  significant  than  the  attempts 


246  Various  Views 

at  legislation  to  which  reference  has  been  made 
is  the  recent  action  or  a  number  of  public  libraries 
and  clubs  in  Eastern  cities,  excluding  from  their 
reading-rooms  the  most  conspicuously  objection- 
able newspapers  that  are  published  anywhere  in 
the  country.  Sometimes  a  movement  like  this, 
once  started,  grows  far  more  rapidly  than  might 
be  anticipated,  just  as  crystallization  takes  place 
in  an  over-saturated  solution  when  some  rallying- 
point  is  offered  for  the  aggregation  of  the  ready 
molecules.  That  some  such  crystallization  of 
sentiment  on  the  subject  of  American  journalism, 
its  duties  and  its  responsibilities,  may  soon  take 
place  is  the  deep  desire  of  every  thinking  person 
who  has  the  interests  of  this  country  at  heart. 

Just  as  every  people  has,  on  the  whole,  the 
government  that  it  deserves,  so  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  every  city  is  responsible  for  the 
newspapers  that  it  supports,  and  deserves  noth- 
ing better  until  it  is  prepared  actively  to  re- 
pudiate the  sheets  by  which  it  is  represented. 
It  will  not  do  merely  to  claim  that  it  is  mis- 
represented by  them,  deploring  their  dishonesty, 
their  vulgarity  of  tone,  and  their  pernicious 
sensationalism,  while  at  the  same  time  giving 


American  Journalism          247 

them  the  encouragement  of  subscriptions  and 
advertising  contracts.  Nor  are  any  protests 
likely  to  avail  so  long  as  the  man  who  has  ac- 
quired wealth  in  the  pursuit  of  disreputable 
journalism  is  permitted  to  associate  with  gen- 
tlemen, to  figure  as  a  leading  citizen  at  public 
gatherings,  to  enjoy  the  freedom  of  the  club 
and  the  communion  of  the  church.  When  the 
public  conscience  is  sufficiently  quickened  to 
recognize  the  fact  that  such  a  man  is  a  moral 
outcast,  that  his  newspaper  pollutes  the  home, 
that  to  purchase  it  upon  the  street-corner  is  a 
direct  encouragement  of  its  vicious  practices, 
and  that  to  use  its  columns  for  advertising  pur- 
poses is  to  pay  too  great  a  price  for  commercial 
gain,  when  these  things  come  to  be  recognized 
—  not  as  counsels  of  perfection  but  as  working 
maxims  for  the  conduct  of  daily  life  —  we  may 
hope  for  a  return  to  the  more  dignified  and 
decent  journalistic  methods  of  the  past  genera- 
tion, and  for  the  assimilation  of  our  press  to  the 
ethical  standards  that  are  upheld  as  a  matter  of 
course  in  most  other  parts  of  the  civilized  world. 
If  the  time  ever  comes  when  those  standards 
shall  obtain  in  American  journalism,  our  news- 


248  Various  Views 

paper  press  will  have  found  its  real  mission,  and 
may  become,  what  it  certainly  is  not  now,  a 
potent  agency  of  enlightenment  and  a  pillar  for 
the  support  of  republican  institutions.  Intelli- 
gent citizens  everywhere  would  be  only  too  glad 
to  look  to  the  newspaper  for  both  light  and 
leading ;  at  present,  instead  of  shedding  light, 
it  darkens  counsel  by  words  without  knowledge, 
and  instead  of  leading  opinion,  it  is  prone  to 
follow  the  uncertain  guidance  of  every  blind 
popular  prejudice  and  every  brutal  fanaticism 
that  sways  the  masses  of  its  readers.  Its  once 
considerable  influence  has  so  waned  that  its 
boasts  of  power  excite  only  the  derision  of  the 
well-informed  ;  its  pretended  statements  of  fact 
are  so  untrustworthy  that  few  people  place  any 
confidence  in  them  ;  its  opinions  are  not  taken 
seriously  because  nobody  supposes  that  they  are 
reached  by  a  process  of  serious  reasoning.  If  a 
newspaper  of  the  typical  sort  perchance  cham- 
pion a  good  cause,  few  will  be  found  to  believe 
in  the  sincerity  of  its  attitude,  for  its  champion- 
ship of  bad  causes  has  long  since  made  it  an 
object  of  suspicion,  if  not  of  contempt. 

The  darkest  hour  is  that  which  just  precedes 


American  Journalism          249 

the  dawn,  and  perhaps  the  dawn  of  a  purified 
journalism  is  nearer  at  hand  than  we  suppose. 
The  legal  maxim  that  wherever  there  is  a  griev- 
ance there  is  a  remedy  may  prove  valid  in  the 
wider  ethical  field  wherein  this  foe  must  be  grap- 
pled with.  Whether  the  remedy  come  from 
within  or  without,  whether  it  be  an  organic 
process  of  regeneration  or  a  surgical  operation 
does  not  matter  so  much  ;  what  does  matter  is 
the  undeniable  fact  that  many  of  the  newspapers 
published  in  our  large  cities  are  so  devoid  of 
principle  that  they  constitute  a  perpetual  menace 
to  every  genuine  interest  of  our  civilization. 
We  need  not  single  out  those  journals  that  stand 
as  honorable  exceptions  to  this  general  statement, 
nor  those  other  journals  that  are  kept  from  the 
state  of  grace  by  weakness  rather  than  by  will ; 
their  editors  and  their  friends  will  know  that  these 
remarks  are  not  meant  for  them.  But  no  words 
of  condemnation  can  be  too  strong  for  the  news- 
papers that  subordinate  all  other  aims  to  the  aim 
of  enlarging  their  circulation  and  their  adver- 
tising patronage,  that  care  nothing  for  the  truth 
and  only  enough  for  decency  to  keep  out  ot  the 
clutches  of  the  criminal  law.  There  is  no  more 


250  Various  Views 

important  work  to  be  done  for  our  civilization 
to-day  than  that  of  shaming  such  newspapers 
either  out  of  existence  or  into  amended  lives, 
and  the  responsibility  for  that  work  is  shared  by 
all  alike. 


Star  System  in  Publishing      251 


THE  STAR  SYSTEM  IN  PUBLISHING. 

A  FEW  years  ago  complaint  was  made,  in  accents 
more  or  less  querulous,  of  the  fact  that  the  books 
which  had  the  largest  sale  and  enjoyed  the  widest 
popularity  in  this  country  were  novels  by  English 
writers.  The  American  novelist  seemed  to  have 
no  chance  at  all  in  the  competition  with  his  trans- 
atlantic rival.  One  of  the  chief  arguments  by 
which  the  campaign  for  international  copyright 
had  been  brought  to  a  successful  issue  was  that 
the  American  novelist  occupied  a  disadvantageous 
position  in  his  own  country,  because  publishers 
would  naturally  give  preference  over  his  work  to 
that  of  the  English  novelist  who  was  not  in  the 
position  to  exact  a  royalty.  The  plea  was  a 
sound  one,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  for  many 
years  American  novelists,  as  well  as  American 
writers  in  other  departments  of  letters,  were  put 
at  a  considerable  disadvantage  by  the  fact  that 
publishers  of  predatory  instincts  (and  such  were 
not  lacking)  might  seize  upon  whatever  English 


252  Various  Views 

books  they  wished,  and  reproduce  them  without 
the  leave  of  either  authors  or  proprietors.  As  be- 
tween an  already  successful  English  novel  upon 
which  no  royalty  need  be  paid,  and  an  American 
manuscript  which  might  or  might  not  make  a 
successful  book  and  for  which  the  author  would 
certainly  demand  compensation,  the  balance  of 
probable  profit  turned  toward  the  side  of  piracy, 
and  the  American  writer  who  had  not  already 
conquered  his  public  found  it  difficult  to  obtain 
a  hearing.  At  last,  however,  the  law  was  passed 
which  accorded  the  bare  measure  of  justice  (or 
something  less  than  that)  to  the  English  author, 
and  placed  the  American  author  in  a  position  to 
compete  with  him  without  being  handicapped 
from  the  start. 

In  some  respects  the  working  of  the  law 
proved  disappointing.  The  cheap  l  libraries,'  it 
is  true,  found  their  opportunities  restricted,  and 
many  of  them  disappeared  altogether  from  the 
market.  But  the  anticipated  c  boom  '  in  Ameri- 
can literature  was  slow  in  appearing.  English 
books  that  were  worth  reading,  as  well  as  those 
that  were  not,  seemed  to  find  their  way  into  our 
houses  almost  as  readily  as  before,  although  it 


Star  System  in  Publishing      253 

was  no  longer  possible  to  purchase  the  latest  pro- 
duction of  Mr.  Black  or  Air.  Hardy  for  a  small 
fraction  of  a  dollar.  Such  books  now  came  to 
us  in  respectable  garb,  and  were  sold  at  a  fair 
price.  The  point  is  that  they  continued  to  come 
and  to  be  sold  in  large  numbers.  Even  our 
popular  magazines  continued  their  practice  of 
contracting  for  the  serial  rights  in  works  of  En- 
glish fiction,  instead  of  offering  that  encourage- 
ment to  home  industry  about  which  American 
novelists  had  raised  such  a  clamor.  There  con- 
tinued to  be  years  in  which  nearly  every  one  of 
our  story  magazines  had  for  its  principal  feature 
the  novel  of  some  English  writer,  offered  to 
readers  upon  the  instalment  plan.  There  were 
the  stories  of  Mr.  Kipling,  for  example,  and  the 
romances  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  with  which 
no  American  writer  of  fiction  could  hope  to 
compete.  Then  there  was  the  series  of  highly  suc- 
cessful individual  books,  beginning  with  'Robert 
Elsmere'  and  coming  down  in  rapid  succession 
to  c  Trilby  '  and  l  The  Christian.'  The  dear 
public  wanted  these  books,  even  if  it  had  to  pay 
roundly  for  them  ;  and  those  who  had  expected 
international  copyright  to  effect  a  revolution  in 


254  Various  Views 

popular  taste  found  that  conditions  remained  very 
much  as  they  had  been  before.  These  selfish 
grounds  were  not,  of  course,  those  upon  which 
the  serious  advocates  of  that  act  of  plain  interna- 
tional duty  rested  their  case,  but  they  no  doubt 
had  considerable  influence  in  securing  its  adop- 
tion. 

The  conditions  of  a  few  years  ago  seem,  how- 
ever, to  have  become  completely  changed  of  late, 
and  American  fiction  seems  at  last  to  have  come 
to  its  own.  The  most  striking  fact  in  the  pub- 
lishing business  of  a  certain  recent  year  is  that 
of  the  extraordinary  success  of  a  few  novels  by 
American  writers.  Five  such  novels  have  won 
the  public  favor  to  such  an  extent  that  their  sale 
has  broken  nearly  all  recent  records,  that  to  find 
its  match,  in  the  case  of  American  fiction  at 
least,  we  must  go  back  to  the  history  of  c  Uncle 
Tom's  Cabin.'  That  this  success  has  been  in 
all  cases  deserved,  we  are  by  no  means  willing 
to  admit.  Of  the  five  novels  in  question,  one  is 
a  homely  character-study  having  for  its  passport 
to  favor  a  plentiful  supply  of  mother-wit  rather 
than  an  effective  plot.  The  other  four  are  his- 
torical romances.  One  of  these  four,  the  work 


Star  System  in  Publishing      255 

of  a  woman,  deserves  very  high  praise  as  repre- 
senting the  best  type  of  historical  fiction.  Two 
of  the  others  are  at  least  admirable  narratives, 
and  present  interesting  phases  of  our  colonial 
history  with  remarkable  sympathy,  industrious 
grasp  of  detail,  and  vivid  dramatic  force.  The 
fourth  is  an  extremely  mediocre  example  of  the 
class  of  work  to  which  it  belongs,  common  in 
both  style  and  treatment,  not  noticeably  better 
or  worse  than  a  score  of  other  books  of  its  sort 
published  during  the  twelvemonth,  and  chiefly 
interesting  as  an  illustration  of  what  can  be  done 
for  a  poor  book  by  shrewd  and  persistent  adver- 
tising. On  the  whole,  our  cause  for  satisfaction 
in  the  success  of  these  five  novels  is  not  so  great 
as  those  who  are  interested  in  them  would  have 
us  believe,  and  the  record  of  their  sales  is  a  brill- 
iant episode  in  the  history  of  American  book- 
selling rather  than  in  the  history  of  American 
literature. 

Whether  the  publishing  trade  is  really  to  be 
congratulated  upon  such  a  series  of  popular  suc- 
cesses as  this,  is  open  to  serious  doubt.  In  one 
case,  at  least,  the  profits  accruing  from  a  sale  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  copies  could  not  avail 


256  Various  Views 

to  save  a  great  and  long-established  house  from 
serious  business  embarrassments.  Such  enor- 
mous sales  of  single  books,  of  which  the  merit, 
even  if  great,  is  not  likely  to  be  fairly  propor- 
tional to  the  sales,  does  not  seem  to  us  to  betoken 
an  altogether  healthy  condition  of  the  publishing 
trade.  Publishers  themselves  know  well  enough 
that  their  success  in  the  long  run  depends,  not 
upon  the  fortunate  acquisition  of  an  occasional 
book  that  enjoys  a  sky-rocket  career,  but  upon 
the  possession  of  a  substantial  list  of  works  of 
permanent  value,  works  that  occupy  a  standard 
place  in  literature  and  may  be  depended  upon  to 
provide  a  steady  income  for  many  years.  The 
publisher  who  has  a  list  of  this  sort  is,  of  course, 
glad  enough  to  get  hold  of  an  exceptionally  suc- 
cessful novel  from  time  to  time ;  such  a  book 
represents  to  him  so  much  clear  gain,  and  he 
would  not  be  human  did  he  fail  to  keep  an  intel- 
ligent watch  for  productions  of  this  sort.  But 
if  he  allows  his  head  to  be  turned  by  visions  of 
this  kind  of  luck,  if  he  despises  the  more  modest 
but  safer  ventures,  if  he  bends  his  energies  toward 
achieving  an  abnormal  sale  for  a  few  books  in- 
stead of  a  normal  sale  for  many,  he  is  likely  to 


Star  System  in  Publishing      257 

come  to  grief.  His  real  interests  lie  in  the  pos- 
session of  many  claims  to  public  esteem  rather 
than  in  the  making  of  a  few  successful  appeals  to 
popular  caprice. 

It  seems  to  us  that  there  is  an  evident  analogy 
between  the  ideal  of  publishing  that  aims  to  push 
a  few  books  into  successful  acceptance  and  the 
ideal  of  theatrical  or  operatic  management  which 
depends  almost  exclusively  upon  the  popularity 
of  a  few  artists.  The  star  system  in  stage  affairs 
has  long  been  understood  by  all  competent  ob- 
servers as  being  extremely  demoralizing  to  the 
true  interests  of  art.  The  recent  history  of  our 
grand  opera  has  brought  this  principle  home  to 
many  who  had  not  realized  it  before.  A  few 
singers  and  a  few  operas  become  established  in 
public  favor,  and  the  short-sighted  policy  of  the 
management,  relying  upon  this  fact,  gathers  for 
the  time  a  rich  harvest.  But  presently  the  public 
wearies  of  its  favorites,  and,  never  having  been 
educated  to  the  point  of  healthy  musical  culture 
which  can  find  interest  and  inspiration  in  a  great 
variety  of  works,  never  having  been  made  to  feel 
that  the  works  themselves  and  not  the  manner 
of  their  performance  should  be  its  chief  concern, 

17 


258  Various  Views 

now  deserts  the  opera-house,  in  spite  of  all  the 
allurements  of  new  voices  and  new  productions. 
The  management  then  complains  that  audiences 
have  no  taste  for  a  varied  repertoire,  that  the 
production  of  untried  compositions  spells  finan- 
cial disaster.  Of  course  it  does :  the  public 
should  have  been  prepared  for  these  composi- 
tions long  before ;  they  should  have  been  pro- 
duced repeatedly,  even  at  some  temporary  loss, 
at  the  time  when  the  public  was  most  clamor- 
ous for  the  sensations  of  the  hour.  The  star 
system  in  publishing  brings  about  very  similar 
results.  Many  worthy  books  are  neglected  in 
order  that  a  few  may  be  kept  well  to  the  front. 
When  the  caprice  is  past,  when  the  serried 
ranks  of  worn  copies  of  c  Trilby '  gather  dust 
upon  the  shelves  of  the  public  library,  when  the 
unsold  copies  in  the  hands  of  the  publisher  and 
bookseller  become  l  plugs,'  the  publisher  should 
then  know  better  than  to  complain  because  his 
other  books  do  not  sell.  The  fact  often  is  that 
he  has  not  tried  to  sell  them,  that  he  has  left 
them  unadvertised  and  uncared-for,  that  they 
have  now  lost  their  chance  because  his  4  enter- 
prise '  has  seen  fit  to  promote  the  sale  of  a  few 


Star  System  in  Publishing      259 

books  at  the  expense  of  all  the  rest.  The  well- 
advised  publisher,  in  our  opinion,  is  the  one  who 
recognizes  the  evils  of  the  star  system,  and  is  not 
misled  by  its  promise  of  present  temporary  gain. 
He  is  the  publisher  who  secures  for  his  list  as 
many  books  of  lasting  value  as  he  can.  And  he 
is  the  publisher  who  cares  for  the  interest  of  all 
of  his  books,  because  he  understands  that  the 
permanent  success  of  his  business  depends  upon 
the  acceptability  of  his  total  output  rather  than 
upon  the  vogue  of  a  few  books  taken  here  and 
there  from  his  catalogue. 


26o  Various  Views 


THE  YOUNG  PERSON. 

IT  is  a  well-known  principle  of  pathology  that 
interference  with  the  normal  activity  of  an  organ 
results  in  functional  perversion.  The  atrophy 
that  follows  upon  the  disuse  of  one  organ  may 
have  for  a  concomitant  the  excessive  develop- 
ment of  others,  with  some  form  of  degeneration 
as  a  consequence;  or  the  over-stimulation  of  one 
may  be  accompanied  by  a  weakening  of  all  the 
others,  leading  in  the  end  to  dissolution.  In 
either  case,  whether  the  disturbing  physiological 
factor  take  the  shape  of  a  forced  activity  here  or 
a  suppressed  activity  there,  the  result  is  some 
development  of  distinctly  morbid  type.  Now 
the  analogies  between  the  organism  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  larger  social  organism  are  always 
instructive,  if  philosophically  dealt  with,  and  the 
thought  of  the  past  thirty  or  forty  years  has  been 
particularly  fruitful  in  applications  of  this  method 
of  comparison.  The  whole  modern  science  of 
sociology,  for  example,  may  be  described  as  an 


The  Young  Person  261 

expansion  of  this  fundamental  idea,  and  gets  its 
most  trustworthy  results  from  the  intelligent  dis- 
cussion of  these  analogies.  It  is  our  purpose 
just  now  to  apply  to  one  aspect  of  literary  activity 
the  method  in  question,  and  to  ask  if  it  may  not 
have  some  instruction  for  the  critic  of  contem- 
porary literature. 

That  reverence  is  due  to  the  young  is  one  of 
the  most  venerable  of  critical  maxims.  It  has 
been  knocking  about  in  literature  ever  since  it  be- 
came embalmed  in  one  of  the  satires  of  Juvenal, 
and  perhaps  for  longer  than  that.  It  has  very 
noticeably  influenced  the  literary  production  of 
the  present  century,  but  it  has  not  always  been 
wisely  apprehended  and  applied.  Let  us  take  a 
moment  to  see  what  has  been  done  with  this 
precept  in  the  case  of  the  two  greatest  literatures 
of  our  time  —  the  French  and  the  English.  In 
both  instances  there  has  been  at  work  a  sub- 
conscious instinct  that  has  sought  to  keep  from 
the  contemplation  of  youthful  minds  certain 
parts  of  human  life  and  certain  phases  of  human 
emotion.  But  the  instinct  has  worked  itself  out 
in  curiously  different  ways.  French  books  have 
become  sharply  differentiated  into  books  for  the 


262  Various  Views 

Young  Person  and  books  for  the  full-grown  man 
or  woman.  English  books,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  nearly  all  been  written,  until  very  lately, 
with  the  Young  Person  carefully  in  view,  and, 
it  would  often  seem,  without  any  consideration 
for  any  other  class  of  readers.  These  two  theo- 
ries, carried  to  extremes,  have  been  productive 
of  the  most  ludicrous  results,  exemplified,  in  the 
one  case,  by  the  school-girl  editions  of  c  Tele- 
maque '  which  carefully  substitute  amiti'e  for 
amour ;  in  the  other,  by  such  an  anecdote  as  has 
recently  gone  the  rounds  of  the  newspapers,  re- 
vealing the  fact  that  a  popular  magazine  of  wide 
circulation  in  this  country  does  not  permit  any 
mention  of  wine  to  be  made  in  its  pages.  And 
both  of  these  theories,  even  when  kept  within 
bounds,  seem  to  us  to  have  led  to  an  abnormal 
condition  of  things  in  the  literatures  that  have 
respectively  practised  them. 

We  all  know  Matthew  Arnold's  hard  saying 
about  the  French  people  —  that  they  have  de- 
voted themselves  to  the  worship  of  the  great 
goddess  of  lubricity.  This  remark  was  never 
meant  to  be  taken  without  qualification,  as  many 
passages  of  Arnold's  critical  works  show  plainly 


The  Young  Person  263 

enough.  It  may  be  sufficient  to  instance  his 
judgment  of  George  Sand,  pronounced  upon 
hearing  of  her  death.  l  She  was  the  greatest 
spirit  in  our  European  world  from  the  time  that 
Goethe  departed.  With  all  her  faults  and 
Frenchisms,  she  was  this.'  The  warmest  ad- 
mirers of  that  woman  of  genius  will  feel  that 
something  more  than  justice  is  done  her  by  this 
bit  of  eulogy,  but  they  will  also  feel  that  the 
man  who  uttered  it  must  have  had  strong 
grounds  for  what  harsh  things  he  at  times  felt 
bound  to  say  about  modern  French  literature. 
That  literature  doubtless  gives  undue  promi- 
nence to  one  particular  form  of  passion,  and 
doubtless  sins  against  the  proprieties  more  fre- 
quently and  more  conspicuously  than  any  litera- 
ture ought  to  do.  To  revert  to  the  pathological 
figure  of  our  introductory  paragraph,  French 
literature  seems,  in  its  treatment  of  the  relations 
of  the  sexes,  to  have  suffered  a  sort  of  fatty  de- 
generation, and  erotic  pates  de  foie  have  entered 
too  largely  into  the  daily  diet  of  its  consumers. 
It  seems  to  us  quite  clear  that  one  of  the  causes 
of  this  abnormal  development  must  be  sought 
for  in  an  unnatural  separation  of  books  for  the 


264  Various  Views 

Young  Person  from  books  for  the  Gallic  adult. 
Since  (in  theory,  at  least)  the  Young  Person  is 
never  supposed  to  see  the  books  written  for  his 
elders,  there  is  no  need  of  writing  them  virgin- 
ibus  puerisque,  and  all  restraint  and  all  reticence 
are  thrown  to  the  winds. 

The  English  theory,  of  course,  has  been  as 
far  removed  from  the  French  theory  as  possible. 
Taking  for  granted  that  the  Young  Person  is 
quite  as  likely  as  anybody  else  to  read  a  book  of 
any  sort,  all  books  (broadly  speaking)  have  been 
written  with  his  needs  and  limitations  in  view, 
and  the  result  has  been  an  emasculated  literature, 
from  which  discussion  of  certain  subjects  has 
been  excluded  by  as  effective  a  taboo  as  was  ever 
practised  among  the  South  Sea  islanders.  News- 
paper cant  and  the  censorship  of  the  circulating 
libraries  have  so  narrowed  the  scope  of  nineteenth- 
century  English  literature  that  the  future  student 
of  Victorian  manners  and  morals  will  have  to  go 
outside  of  literature  to  get  the  facts  in  proper 
perspective.  These  remarks  apply  with  equal 
force  to  the  English  literature  produced  upon 
our  own  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The  suppression 
of  natural  literary  activity  thus  indicated  has  been 


The  Young  Person  265 

correcting  itself  of  late,  and  in  the  usual  violent 
way.  Unless  atrophy  has  gone  so  far  as  to  prove 
fatal,  nature  usually  contrives  to  reassert  herself, 
and  throws  the  whole  organism  into  disorder  by 
so  doing.  The  last  few  years  have  brought  real- 
ism and  plain-speaking  back  into  English  litera- 
ture, and  with  a  vengeance.  The  dovecotes  of 
hypocrisy  have  been  fluttered  by  ominous  birds 
of  prey,  and  the  sober-minded,  who  have  all 
along  viewed  with  apprehension  the  attempt  to 
keep  English  literature  in  a  straight-jacket,  have 
stood  alternately  amused  and  aghast  at  the  antics 
with  which  it  has  celebrated  its  newly-acquired 
liberty. 

The  problem  is  certainly  a  vexatious  one. 
The  example  of  one  nation  shows  us  the  bad 
effects  of  ignoring  the  Young  Person ;  the  ex- 
ample of  another  furnishes  an  instructive  lesson 
in  the  consequences  of  deferring  to  him  over- 
much. Unbounded  license  is  an  unquestionable 
evil ;  the  cramping  of  ideals,  on  the  other  hand, 
leads  to  a  reaction  almost  equally  evil.  Whether 
the  one  course  be  pursued  or  the  other,  freedom 
of  literary  expression  will  find  its  stout  champions, 
as  it  has  already  found  them  in  both  countries, 


266  Various  Views 

from  Moliere  to  Mr.  Swinburne.  We  do  not 
want  a  revival  of  eighteenth  century  grossness. 
Mr.  Gosse  says,  in  a  recent  critique,  that  with 
Mr.  Hardy's  latest  novel  cwe  have  traced  the 
full  circle  of  propriety.  A  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  Fielding  and  Smollett  brought  up  before  us 
pictures,  used  expressions,  described  conduct, 
which  appeared  to  their  immediate  successors  a 
little  more  crude  than  general  reading  warranted. 
In  Miss  Burney's  hands,  and  in  Miss  Austen's 
the  morals  were  still  further  hedged  about.  Scott 
was  even  more  daintily  reserved.  We  came  at 
last  to  Dickens,  where  the  clamorous  passions  of 
mankind,  the  coarser  accidents  of  life,  were  ab- 
solutely ignored,  and  the  whole  question  of  pop- 
ulation seemed  reduced  to  the  theory  of  the 
gooseberry  bush.  This  was  the  ne  plus  ultra  of 
decency  ;  Thackeray  and  George  Eliot  relaxed 
this  intensity  of  prudishness ;  once  on  the  turn, 
the  tide  flowed  rapidly,  and  here  is  Mr.  Hardy 
ready  to  say  any  mortal  thing  that  Fielding  said, 
and  a  great  deal  more  too.' 

Fortunately,  we  are  not  yet  forced  to  take 
c  Jude  the  Obscure'  as  typical  of  our  century  and 
literature,  although  the  atrocious  faults  of  taste 


The  Young  Person  267 

displayed  by  that  book  do  not  stand  alone  to 
represent  their  class.  And  we  cannot  agree  with 
Mr.  Gosse  in  saying  that  to  censure  such  out- 
spokenness '  is  the  duty  of  the  moralist  and  not 
the  critic.'  If  criticism  has  any  most  imperative 
duty,  it  is  precisely  the  one  so  airily  disclaimed 
by  this  self-constituted  spokesman  for  the  craft. 
And  there  is  not  much  palliation  for  such  an 
offence  as  Mr.  Hardy's  in  the  prefatory  danger- 
signal  which  describes  the  book  as  ca  novel  ad- 
dressed by  a  man  to  men  and  women  of  full  age.' 
This  is  the  French  theory  over  again,  and  might 
be  used  to  cloak  all  of  the  French  excesses.  It 
seems  to  us  that  the  real  solution  of  the  problem 
presented  by  the  Young  Person  must  take  the 
form  of  a  compromise,  and  that  a  compromise  is 
possible  that  shall  mean  neither  a  loss  of  virility 
in  literature  nor  the  exposure  of  the  immature  to 
corrupting  influences.  We  need,  first  of  all,  to 
clear  our  minds  of  cant  on  the  subject  of  the 
supposed  ignorance  of  the  Young  Person.  The 
Frenchman  knows  perfectly  well  that  his  theory 
does  not  work,  and  that  boys  and  girls  read  the 
books  they  are  not  supposed  to  read.  The  En- 
glishman knows  equally  well  that  his  theory 


268  Various  Views 

works  no  better,  and  that  boys  and  girls  who  do 
not  get  a  knowledge  of  life  from  literature  get  it 
in  other  and  usually  worse  ways.  Why  should 
we  not  admit  right  away  that  our  education  is  not 
as  frank  as  it  ought  to  be  ?  With  this  admission 
we  might  couple  the  plea,  on  the  one  hand,  for 
less  prudishness  than  we  have  been  accustomed 
to  put  into  books  likely  to  fall  into  the  hands  of 
the  Young  Person  ;  while  sternly  insisting,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  all  literature  should  be  clean, 
that  grossness  is  a  thing  unpardonable  in  itself, 
and  not  merely  for  its  degrading  influence  upon 
a  certain  possible  class  of  readers.  Some  such 
middle  ground  as  this  should  be  found  safe  for 
all  the  interests  concerned ;  it  should  result  in  a 
literature  both  strengthened  and  purified,  not 
losing  from  view  the  needs  of  the  Young  Person, 
but  rather  according  them  a  more  rational  con- 
sideration than  they  have  had  hitherto. 


The  New  Patriotic  Impulse     269 


THE  NEW  PATRIOTIC  IMPULSE. 

A  GREAT  deal  has  been  said,  during  the  past  few 
years,  about  the  rekindling  of  American  patriot- 
ism that  has  resulted  from  the  war  with  Spain 
and  its  sequela.  We  are  once  more  a  united 
people,  and  we  stand  together  in  the  defence  of 
the  national  honor,  and  new  glories  have  been 
won  for  the  American  flag,  and  we  have  taken 
our  proper  place  among  the  great  powers,  and 
our  manifest  destiny  has  again  declared  itself  in 
the  impressive  deeds  by  which  the  triumph  of 
our  arms  has  been  accomplished.  The  changes 
have  been  rung  upon  all  the  familiar  phrases  of 
political  oratory,  gold  and  pinchbeck  alike,  and 
flamboyant  boastings  from  every  quarter  of  the 
land  have  convinced  men  only  too  willing  to  be 
persuaded  that  our  feet  were  indeed  planted  upon 
'  glory-crowned  heights.'  The  emotions  to  which 
explosive  vent  has  been  given  are,  no  doubt,  sin- 
cere enough  to  deserve  a  certain  measure  of 
respect,  even  from  those  who  know  how  hollow 


270  Various  Views 

in  reality  the  most  resonant  phrases  may  be,  and 
how  recklessly  the  political  rhetorician  will  indulge 
in  sentiments  to  which  the  whole  tenor  of  his 
career  gives  the  lie.  But  thinking  men  have 
never  been  content,  in  America  or  elsewhere,  to 
accept  at  their  face  value  the  counters  of  the 
politician.  As  was  recently  said  in  l  The  Na- 
tion,' 4  in  the  case  of  such  men,  the  proposed 
sentiments  of  humanity  and  morality  really  count 
for  nothing  at  all.  They  regard  them  merely  as 
mouth-filling  phrases,  which  sound  well  and 
please  their  constituents;  and  never  dream  that 
they  will  one  day  return  to  plague  them,  or  that 
anybody  will  think  of  holding  them  to  their  own 
professions.'  And  whether  such  sentiments  come 
from  some  high  official  like  the  war-lord  of 
Washington,  or  from  the  most  servile  henchman 
of  a  political  party  having  at  bottom  no  nobler 
motive  than  party  advantage  and  no  higher  aim 
than  plunder,  their  ring  is  false,  and  will  deceive 
only  those  who  wish  to  be  deceived. 

The  new  patriotic  impulse  to  which  we  here 
wish  to  call  attention  finds  no  illustrations  in  the 
noisy  plaudits  of  those  who  din  daily  into  our 
ears  the  catchwords  of  duty  and  destiny  —  the 


The  New  Patriotic  Impulse     271 

duty  of  advancing  civilization  by  fire  and  sword, 
the  destiny  which  may  only  be  asserted  by  deny- 
ing to  alien  peoples  the  fundamental  rights  of 
man.  Rather  do  we  hear  through  all  this  din 
the  accents  of  a  still  small  voice  recalling  to  us 
that  our  true  duties  lie  close  at  hand,  and  that 
the  national  destinies  wrought  out  for  us  by 
Washington  and  Jefferson  and  Lincoln  are  abso- 
lutely incompatible  with  our  new-fangled  dreams 
of  empire.  And  because  this  voice,  which  is  no 
other  than  the  voice  of  the  national  conscience, 
has  not  breathed  out  its  protest  unheeded,  but 
has  found  so  many  fearless  spokesmen,  filled 
with  passion  for  the  ideals  that  all  true  Ameri- 
cans have  cherished  hitherto,  and  thrilling  with 
indignation  at  the  present  desecration  of  those 
ideals,  it  has  seemed  to  us  that  this  new  mani- 
festation of  the  spirit  of  the  finer  patriotism  is  a 
most  noteworthy  phenomenon,  not  to  be  paral- 
elled  more  than  two  or  three  times  in  the  whole 
course  of  our  history.  In  behalf  of  this  protest 
against  the  abandonment  of  the  principles  by 
which  our  moral  stature  as  a  nation  has  hitherto 
been  determined,  there  has  been  enlisted,  in  the 
words  of  ex-Governor  George  S.  Boutwell,  can 


272  Various  Views 

array  of  names  such  as  has  not  been  brought  to- 
gether in  support  of  a  common  cause  since  the 
signing  of  the  Declaration  of  independence.'  So 
many  are  these  names,  and  so  great  is  their  influ- 
ence as  leaders  of  both  thought  and  action,  that 
we  shall  not  attempt  the  invidious  task  of  sing- 
ling out  a  few  for  special  mention.  A  score  or 
more  of  them  will  occur  at  once  to  the  mind  of 
any  well-informed  reader,  and  every  fair  critic 
must  admit  that  they  represent  an  overwhelming 
preponderance  of  the  intelligence  and  morality  of 
our  fellow-citizens. 

The  attempt  of  a  time-serving  press  to  attach 
to  these  names  the  stigma  of  treason  is  one  that 
falls  with  the  weight  of  its  own  absurdity.  Their 
position  is  exactly  that  of  Chatham  and  Burke 
in  opposing  another  war  of  subjugation  over  a 
hundred  years  ago.  It  is  for  the  courage  of  their 
attitude  in  resisting  a  perverse  and  short-sighted 
colonial  policy  that  those  men  are  held  in  the 
highest  honor  by  Englishmen  and  Americans 
alike.  The  verdict  of  history  metes  out  even 
justice  to  the  men  who  in  any  age  withstand  the 
outbursts  of  popular  folly ;  and  who  can  doubt 
that,  in  our  own  present  case,  when  'the  tumult 


The  New  Patriotic  Impulse     273 

and  the  shouting  dies/  the  leaders  who  now,  at 
no  small  cost  of  temporary  popularity,  stand  for 
the  principles  of  the  Fathers  of  our  Government, 
and  speak  for  c  the  mighty  hopes  that  make  us 
men  '  in  a  sense  unknown  to  European  history, 
will  be  adjudged  by  no  remote  posterity  to  have 
won  for  themselves  a  crown  of  exceeding  great 
glory.  Whatever  may  be  the  outcome  of  the 
struggle  to  preserve  for  this  nation  the  ideals  upon 
which  its  true  grandeur  has  been  based  — whether 
our  ship  of  state  reach  its  haven  or  suffer  ship- 
wreck—  the  honor  of  these  men  is  secure. 
They  have  fought  the  good  fight,  and  history 
will  set  them  high  among  the  heroes  of  our  race. 
In  a  certain  sense,  the  judgment  of  history  is 
already  pronounced.  What  history  says  of  any 
age  is  determined  largely  by  what  the  most  force- 
ful minds  of  that  age  have  said  of  its  issues. 
The  men  who  are  to-day  speaking  to  us  with 
the  authority  of  experience  and  ripened  political 
wisdom  are  the  men  to  whom  the  historian  of 
the  future  will  turn  for  light,  just  as  we  now 
turn  for  light  upon  the  history  of  our  Revolu- 
tionary struggle  to  the  living  words  of  Burke 
and  Chatham,  of  Washington  and  Jefferson. 


274  Various  Views 

These  considerations  bring  us  to  the  more 
special  subject  of  the  present  discussion.  We 
Americans  have  a  great  wealth  of  political  lit- 
erature, for  our  bent  toward  the  discussion  of 
problems  of  statecraft  is  as  marked  as  was  that 
of  the  Athenians.  Much  of  this  literature  is  mere 
volubility,  and  whatever  heat  it  once  had  has 
long  since  become  dissipated.  But  the  best  of  this 
literature  is  still  a  living  force,  for  it  deals  with  the 
most  vital  features  of  our  polity,  and  its  interest 
remains  perennial.  When  we  survey  the  cher- 
ished masterpieces  of  our  political  writing  —  its 
eloquent  oratory  and  its  calm  intellectual  appeal 
— we  find  that  they  centre  about  two  great  themes 
— the  struggle  for  independence  and  a  national 
union,  and  the  struggle  to  preserve  that  union  and 
make  it  stand  for  freedom  in  the  largest  meaning, 
for  the  equality  of  all  men  in  the  sight  of  the  law. 
It  is  this  latter  aspect  of  the  secular  conflict 
which  now  again  confronts  us,  and  the  cause  at 
issue  makes  upon  us  a  demand  no  less  imperious 
than  the  demand  that  was  made  upon  an  earlier 
generation  by  the  harsh  pretensions  of  the  En- 
glish crown,  and  upon  a  later  one  by  the  arrogant 
pretensions  of  the  slave-owning  oligarchy.  He 


The  New  Patriotic  Impulse     275 

must  be  blind  indeed  who  does  not  see  that  the 
same  essential  principles  are  now  again  at  stake, 
and  that  the  outcome  of  the  present  deplorable 
situation  is  fraught  with  the  same  enormous  pos- 
sibilities for  good  or  for  evil. 

In  this  serious  condition  of  affairs,  our  writers 
have  not  been  found  wanting,  and  it  is  with  the 
deepest  satisfaction  that  we  call  attention  to  the 
way  in  which  they  have  risen  to  the  high  occasion 
offered  them.  There  is  growing  up  about  the 
present  subject  of  contention  a  mass  of  literature 
which  is  conceived  in  accordance  with  the  noblest 
traditions  of  American  thought.  Even  in  mere 
bulk  it  is  already  almost  comparable  with  the  lit- 
erature inspired  by  opposition  to  the  institution 
of  slavery,  and  in  quality  it  is  no  whit  inferior, 
either  in  its  impassioned  earnestness  or  in  its 
deep  resolve  to  maintain  to  the  death  those  stand- 
ards of  justice  and  human  right  that  so  many 
seem  now  to  be  weakly  forsaking.  The  thought 
which  infuses  all  this  writing  is  indeed  that  which 

'  Helped  our  fathers'  souls  to  live, 
And  bids  the  waning  century  bloom  anew.' 

It  is  the  thought  of  men  too  sturdy  in  their 
Americanism  to  be  swept  away  from  their  moor- 


276  Various  Views 

ings  by  the  gusts  of  partisan  folly,  and  too  sure 
that  they  are  right  to  be  influenced  by  any  array 
of  hostile  numbers.  It  is  the  thought  of  men 
each  one  of  whom  would  be  content  to  stand 
with  serene  conscience  an  Athanasius  contra 
mundum,  each  one  of  whom  would  reecho  the 
4  Ultima  Verba  '  of  Victor  Hugo, 

'  Sans  chercher  a  savoir  et  sans  considerer 
Si  quelqu'un  a  plie  qif  on  aurait  cru  plus  ferme, 
Et  si  plusieurs  s'en  vont  qui  devraient  demeurer.' 

The  defenders  of  our  latter-day  imperialism  have 
not  yet  come  to  understand  the  temper  of  this 
opposition  to  their  reckless  course.  They  treat 
it  as  a  difference  of  opinion,  but  it  is  nothing  of 
the  sort.  Men  may  have  opinions  about  such 
matters  as  the  tariff  and  the  currency,  but  the 
proposition  to  cast  aside  the  doctrines  of  the  Con- 
stitution and  the  Declaration,  the  counsels  of 
Washington  and  Lincoln,  the  sanctions  of  free 
government  that  have  been  inculcated  upon 
Americans  from  their  earliest  childhood  —  this 
proposition  runs  counter  to  the  most  sacred  con- 
victions of  all  men  to  whom  Americanism  is 
more  than  an  empty  name. 

Let  us  enumerate  a  few  —  a  very  few  —  of 


The  New  Patriotic  Impulse    277 

the  writings  that  have  responded  to  this  wild  on- 
slaught upon  the  principles  that  make  the  Amer- 
ican name  dear  to  us.  There  are  the  lectures 
and  addresses  contained  in  President  Jordan's 
1  Imperial  Democracy,'  a  volume  which  is  a 
complete  arsenal  of  fact  and  argument.  There 
are  such  papers  as  '  The  Present  Crisis,'  by  Ed- 
win D.  Mead ;  '  Our  Nation's  Peril,'  by  Dr. 
Lewis  G.  Janes;  'Imperialism,  and  the  Tracks 
of  Our  Forefathers,'  by  Mr.  Charles  Francis 
Adams;  'England  in  1776:  America  in  1899,' 
by  Mr.  William  M.  Salter;  and  'The  Conquest 
of  the  United  States  by  Spain,'  by  Professor 
William  G.  Sumner.  There  are  such  speeches 
as  those  of  Senator  Hoar  in  Congress,  of  Mr. 
Carl  Schurz  in  Chicago  and  elsewhere,  of  Pro- 
fessor Charles  Eliot  Norton  at  the  Ashfield 
Dinner.  There  are  such  fugitive  writings  as  the 
'Open  Letter'  from  ex-Senator  Henderson,  and 
'The  Philippine  Piracy,'  by  Professor  William 
James.  There  are  innumerable  other  contribu- 
tions to  this  literature  of  protest  and  warning, 
offered  by  such  men  as  President  Eliot,  Professor 
von  Hoist,  Bishop  Henry  C.  Potter,  Bishop  John 
L.  Spaulding,  Professor  Felix  Adler,  and  the  Rev. 


278  Various  Views 

Henry  Van  Dyke.  Now,  of  all  this  literature  it 
is  not  enough  to  say  that  it  cannot  be  ignored. 
Much  of  it  is  so  admirable  in  form,  besides  being 
suffused  with  the  lasting  qualities  of  fine  intelli- 
gence and  exalted  emotion,  that  it  is  sure  of 
preservation  among  the  most  noteworthy  exam- 
ples of  American  patriotic  eloqence.  The  future 
student  and  compiler  of  such  literature  will  be 
justified  in  placing  Senator  Hoar's  great  speech 
beside  Webster's  reply  to  Hayne,  and  Professor 
Sumner's  Phi  Beta  Kappa  address  beside  the 
finest  efforts  of  his  great  namesake.  One  reads 
these  masterly  productions  with  the  same  glow 
of  feeling  that  is  inspired  by  the  traditional  mod- 
els of  our  eloquence,  and  the  youth  of  the  future 
will  take  from  them  the  same  contagion  of  en- 
thusiasm which  our  generation  has  caught  from 
their  old-time  prototypes.  Their  present  value 
is  that  they  strengthen  our  faith  in  the  potency 
of  our  cherished  ideals,  and  bid  us  take  heart  for 
our  country  however  dark  the  present  outlook. 
What  to  the  faint-hearted  may  seem  one  sweep- 
ing d'egringolade  of  principles  and  institutions  can- 
not, after  all,  be  a  reality  as  long  as  such  voices 
as  these  are  raised  to  recall  us  to  the  old  paths  of 


The  New  Patriotic  Impulse     279 

national  virtue  and  sobriety.  'This  spasm  of  folly 
and  delusion  also,  in  my  judgment,  will  surely 
pass  by,'  are  among  the  closing  words  of  Senator 
Hoar's  memorable  speech.  And  what  true  Amer- 
ican should  not  be  proud  to  echo  the  words  that 
follow  :  c  Whether  it  passes  by  or  not,  I  thank 
God  I  have  done  my  duty,  and  that  I  have  ad- 
hered to  the  great  doctrines  of  righteousness  and 
freedom,  which  I  learned  from  my  fathers,  and 
in  whose  service  my  life  has  been  spent.' 

Such  a  literature  as  this  makes  us  almost  glad 
that  the  occasion  for  it  has  arisen.  The  awaken- 
ing from  our  fancied  security  has  been  rude,  and 
the  perils  to  which  we  are  exposed  have  become 
imminent;  but  we  now  know,  at  least,  that  the 
voices  that  were  raised  in  past  crises  of  our  na- 
tional life  have  found  worthy  successors,  and 
that  the  torch  has  been  handed  on  still  aflame. 
The  poets,  indeed,  we  sadly  miss,  although  Mr. 
William  Vaughn  Aioody,  with  his  '  Ode  in 
Time  of  Hesitation,'  has  risen  nobly  to  the 
occasion.  We  know  well  with  what  prophetic 
fire  our  Whittier,  were  he  now  alive,  would 
arouse  our  sluggish  conscience,  and  our  Lowell 
scourge  with  the  scorpion  whip  of  his  indigna- 


28o  Various  Views 

tion  the  traducers  of  our  national  character.  But 
the  words  of  the  poets  have  this  advantage  over 
all  common  words,  that  they  apply  t°  other  times 
and  places  than  those  by  which  they  are  imme- 
diately occasioned,  and  neither  '  Ichabod '  nor 
the  'Biglow  Papers"  could  in  reality  be  bettered 
for  our  present  needs.  What,  in  fact,  could  a 
Lowell  now  say  that  would  be  more  exactly  to 
the  point  than  these  familiar  stanzas,  and  the 
note  by  which  they  are  supplemented : 

'  "We  were  gittin'  on  nicely  up  here  to  our  village, 

With  good  old  idees  o'  wut's  right  an'  wut  aint, 
We  kind  o'  thought  Christ  went  agin  war  an'  pillage, 
An'  thet  eppyletts  worn't  the  bestm  ark  of  a  saint; 
But  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  this  kind  o'  thing's  an  exploded  idee. 

'  The  side  of  our  country  must  oilers  be  took, 

An'  President  Polk,  you  know,  he  is  our  country. 
An'  the  angel  that  writes  all  our  sins  in  a  book 
Puts  the  debit    to  him,  and  to  us  the  per  contry ; 
And  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  this  is  his  view  o'  the  thing  to  a  T.' 

'  Our  country  is  bounded  on  the  north  and  the  south,  on 
the  east  and  the  west,  by  Justice,  and  when  she  oversteps 
that  invisible  boundary-line  by  so  much  as  a  hair's-breadth, 


The  New  Patriotic  Impulse     281 

she  ceases  to  be  our  mother,  and  chooses  to  be  looked 
upon  quasi  no<verca.  That  is  a  hard  choice  when  our 
earthly  love  of  country  calls  upon  us  to  tread  one  path 
and  our  duty  points  us  to  another.  We  must  make  as 
noble  and  becoming  an  election  as  did  Penelope  between 
Icarius  and  Ulysses.  Veiling  our  faces,  we  must  take 
silently  the  hand  of  Duty  to  follow  her.1 


